Closing the experience gap.

This is the Texas I imagined. For the first time since getting to Texas, I whittled yesterday.

It was great. I got to turn a bigger stick into a smaller stick that had less bark and was all chipped up. While wood peels in tiny curls and chips at my feet, clouds ambled past in the light blue December afternoon sky. Front porch sitting, whittling, listening to the birds sing and the Whipsaws play on the stereo: this is the Texas I imagined- December 18th brought 65 degrees and a slight breeze.

This is the Texas I imagined. Well, minus the six shooters, dancing girls, swinging doors, cacti, high school football (“I don’t wan tchyorelife!”), and whisky that flows like wine. But it is pretty close. Close enough to have a permanent smile permeate back into the deeper places of my soul that had been leased out to stress, others’ needs, inexperience, lack of sleep, and heartache: you know- life.

I am with my class at Camp Olympia, HISD’s Outdoor Education Center. I could not think of a better way to segue into break. It is a 3 day long camp about 2.5 hours outside of Houston where my kids get the chance to meet other schools, go canoeing, orienteer, horseback ride, shoot arrows, play night games, look at stars (which have been erased from the skies as effectively as the fifth ward has erased innocence from most of my kids’ lives), clean up after themselves, find bugs in water, and become kids again surrounded by nature.

We arrived at camp and pulled up a long wooded driveway and parked in a clearing- 20 seconds later the counselors ambled onto the busses introduced themselves and told us teachers to wander off. This week, we- the 5th grade staff- have had NO responsibility other than chaperone the bus rides at the beginning and end of the week. So, my team has had campfires, watched the kids, planned science collaboration for next year: Science is a major weak point for our kids, and just taken in the wonder of it all. We have smiled more, and gotten the chance to follow our kids around, falling back in love with them as people. Also, Danielle, Johnnie and I have realized how awesome our kids really are and the exhausted smiles and wonderment when we see them in the dining hall or when we join them for a moment is so filled with love, that it totally invigorates me to plan over break and return from break closer to the teacher the kids deserve. Due to this week, I am actually going to be going into a vacation not MASSIVLEY sleep deprived for the first time since probably eighth grade. Neat.

The kids learning to canoe might have been the funniest thing I have seen ever. They were given a 20 minute land course on the basics, and then a 10 minute safety quiz and then broken into pairs and put into boats. What ensued was pure chaos. Kids holding paddles backwards, going in circles, bumping into each other, paddling the wrong direction, only getting the hang of reverse, losing paddles, getting blown against the shore by the wind, and many other little emergencies signal by screams, giggles, and blushing. Then after about 40% of the kids had communicated and adapted enough to be able to generally move forward within 90 degrees of where they were aiming the safety row boat counselor Captain Wood started throwing nerf footballs for them to fetch. This reduced even the good canoes back to the original state of ineffectiveness. But several kids adapted. JJ and Peloca gave up on paddles and used hands. Oscar and Miko perfected the crab-noe which goes straight sideways. And one canoe I didn’t know only went backwards, but they were the fastest canoe out there. The high point though came with about 5 minutes left. The students were to stay within a large buoyed in swimming area with their 10 canoes and were told many times to stay in the buoys. One canoe with a pair of boys in it (unfortunately I didn’t know them either) lost control and went past the buoys and panicked as their canoe drifted at a 45 degree angels outside they start paddling frantically which only made them spin and go a little bit further out and so they did the only logical thing in 50 degree water in December. They screamed and jumped back towards the buoys. I thought I was never going to stop laughing. The rescue boat had his hands full for a bit, but in the end it all worked out, we got the boys some cocoa and I have a memory that will plant smiles in me for a long time.

There are 3 schools here and the kids are broken up into groups by the camp, and removed from their cliques and junior gangs and close friends and dumped into a loving environment. It was like slowly over the time here the fresh air, nature, and lack of people holding them in preconceived roles chipped away at scared adolescent chrysalises and most of our kids have ruddy (though dark) faces glowing like a diverse rainbow of monarchs flying outside of a greenhouse for the first time.

I only hope that after Christmas Break I can hold onto these memories and channel some of this energy back into the classroom. My kids have been learning so much and don’t even know it yet. If I can create that in my classroom even once a week, I will be taking baby steps towards being the teacher I want to be. And even if after break the energy is all gone and the kids won’t bring it break- they fro 3 days got to experience something that they otherwise never would have- the type of childhood that has summer camp, the wonder of nature, and the realization that we are a small and valuable part of something much larger than ourselves. This is demonstrated by wide exausted eyes, and a new found voulonteering to help clean up FOR OTHERS (J) after meals. Wow.

I reckon I gotta run meet the chilluns’ we is packin’ up and we might could leave soon! Y’all come back now ya hear! This is the Texas I imagined.




Ps- As I am publishing this ( a couple weeks after writing it), an Atmosphere song came on and here is a lyric that resonated with me:
“Surrounding are gonna dictate the need. I’m out I wanna live around lakes and trees.”

When I am done in Houston- I need to get back to be surrounded by nature.