notesfrompublicschool-blog - Tumblr blog

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 48

In the community around my school, families are from Mexico, Central America and South America.

I love them.

By that I mean this.

We stand side-by-side and heart to heart.

We take care of each other.

We are a part of each other’s lives.

We listen to each other’s stories.

I am because we are.

We are because I am.

This ‘being’ and ‘listening’ helps

us understand each other more clearly and deeply.

When I browse a story about immigration on social media, hear an interview with demagogic, xenophobic politician on NPR, or read a journalist who immersed herself in the journeys of migrants, I close my eyes and see the faces of the students who fill my life with their lives each and every day.

When I hear the words ‘immigration’ and ‘immigrants,’ I see Maria and Hilcias and Brisya and Patrick.

When I hear the phrase ‘migratory road,’ I remember the stories they tell me about their journeys from their home countries to Greenville, S.C.

This seeing and hearing and remembering is of monumental importance to the way I understand my immigrant neighbors around me.

It’s why I wear a button that says “No human is illegal” on the lanyard of my school ID.

It’s why I reach out to the SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center to offer my gifts and talents to their work with immigrant families.

It’s why I read read ‘lots of books and write ‘lots of stories about migrants and immigration.

In the poem below, I hope you’ll see and hear some of the people I’ve seen and heard.

I hope you’ll carry them, carry them in your heart.

the things they carry

now

on

the land

migrants live

with holes in the floors

cracks in the walls, leaks in the roofs,

broken apart from years upon years of people

moving in, moving out, broken apart by owners using money for things other than repairs

yet held together by people like my abuelo and mamí, who will move into a used place, scrub the floors and walls with soap and water

repair broken parts with things they carry with them, patch them with grit, common sense and love

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 47

Today at recess I saw one of my students sitting on the bench beside the playground.

She was sitting all alone, by herself.

I’m always touched deeply in my heart when I see a child sitting all alone surrounded by other kids laughing, talking and playing.

How about you?

I know sometimes people just want to have some time alone.

Heck, I sure do.

Especially after being surrounded by people, noise and chaos from 7 AM til 3 PM.

Peace and quiet sounds good to me.

But for a nine year old on a playground filled with other nine year olds after sitting all morning in a chair at a desk in a classroom?

Not so much.

So I sat down beside my student.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay? You look a little lonely.”

“Yeah,” she answered, “I’m just tired.”

“Oh,” I said, “Didn’t you sleep well?”

“Well,” she answered, “I was at the emergency room with my little sister from midnight until 4 this morning. My mom, dad and I took her because her ears were hurting and we were worried about her.”

“Wow,” I said. “You know what? You’re a good sister. She’s lucky to have a sister like you and a family who cares about her.”

Now, here is what I’d like you to know, gentle reader.

Not every student who comes to school each day has had a good nights sleep in a comfortable bed.

Not every student who comes to school each day has a full belly with a home cooked breakfast.

Some students come with little sleep and a worried mind.

When I sit beside that student on a bench beside the playground on a fall day before lunch I will not be looking at her as a data point.

I will not see her as a students who did not meet the standard on an SC Ready test.

I will be looking at her as a tired, worried little girl who needs me to sit beside her and hold her hand.

I will see her as a hero who does all she can do to love and support her family.

I’ll work as hard as I can day in and day out to help her become the best writer and scientist she can become.

But most of all I’ll just be there beside her.

To me, that’s the best thing a teacher can do.

That’s the best person a teacher can be.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 46

One of my favorite writers is Robert Lupton.

He’s a writing mentor to me.

His work “Theirs Is The Kingdom” is a book of small stories with big heart.

A sentence from one of those stories has stayed with me through the years.

“Care is the bigger part of cure,” he wrote.

I think about that each morning as I walk through the doors of my Title I elementary school.

As teachers, we try to ‘cure.’

Students three grade levels behind in reading.

Students who don’t know their basic multiplication facts.

Students who don’t know how to write a complete sentence.

Yes, we try with all we are and all we do to cure.

But maybe, just maybe, the most important thing we do is ‘care.’

Here is an example from my day.

“There is NOTHING I can write about,” declared a student.

I sat at his table in front of him, eye to eye and heart to heart.

There was a proverbial cloud over his head.

Giant tears were in his eyes like rain drops.

“Hey,” I said.

“Look at me closely and listen to me carefully.

I opened a proverbial umbrella over his head.

There is SOMETHING you can write about.

You can write about YOU.

I CARE about you.

I want to hear YOUR story.

Now, ¡vamanos!

Let’s go!”

He opened his writers notebook.

He made a genius page, filled with things he knows a lot about.

He started writing.

And boy did that kid write.

He wrote about swimming with his mom over the summer.

He finished with a dedication page to his story.

“This story is for Mr. Barton,” he wrote, “Because he cares.”

And I do.

I really, really do.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 45

I don’t know about you, but I love symbols.

One of my favorite symbols is Apple Computers apple with a missing bite.

I also love Harry Potter’s lightning bolt on his forehead.

The symbol I chose for myself is a humble pencil.

Nothing fancy.

Just a reliable, old Ticonderoga #2 pencil with a slightly used eraser.

It represents the best of who I am as a writer and a teacher.

Reliable.

Erasing mistakes and trying again.

Writing. Rewriting. Writing. Rewriting. Sharpening. Writing again.

Yep, that’s me.

Do you have a symbol?

What is it?

Why did you choose it?

I’d love to know.

This afternoon, as I was cleaning up my classroom and preparing to go to the YMCA for my afternoon swim, I found a symbol in an unlikely place.

It was tucked behind the top of the little American flag I display that we use when we say the pledge of allegiance every morning.

There behind the top of the little flag was an origami butterfly.

I immediately knew who made it.

I immediately knew who put it there.

It was one of my students from last year.

She is from Honduras.

She speaks Spanish at home and English at school, and I marvel at the intelligence it takes to be bilingual and live with one foot in one world and one foot in another world.

I’ll always remember her because she had a learning disability and could barely read.

During the year, though, she fell in love with Manga art and books.

She worked so hard to understand the words in the books that she basically taught herself to read.

And to draw Manga art.

And to fold paper into astonishing origami figures.

During the last weeks of school, when we were spending hour upon hour taking high stakes standardized reading tests in the classroom, she taped a little prayer to the corner of her Chromebook.

“Please, God,” it read, “I don’t want to fail.”

I had so much hope in my heart for her.

And she didn’t fail.

I took a picture of her origami butterfly on top of the American flag beside a poster with the famous words from Maya Angelou’s poem And Still I Rise.

It’s my symbol for her.

It represents the best of who she is.

How would you describe that symbol.

I’d love to know.

You know what?

I hope in my heart of hearts that that symbol represents the best of America for her.

Molly T. Marshall Bill J. Leonard

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 44

One of my students walked over to my table this morning.

She looked up at me with her big, brown eyes.

There was a hint of tiredness in them, dark circles around them that shouldn’t be in the eyes of one so young.

“Mr. Barton,” she whispered in her beautiful mixture of Spanish and English, “I just wanted you to know that I had to get up in the middle of the night to ride with my dad to take my mom to work. He put a blanket over me and let me sleep in the back seat of the car while we were getting mom there and getting back home again. I just wanted you to know I’m sleepy. If I accidentally close my eyes while you’re teaching, it’s not because I don’t care and am not paying attention. Well, it’s because I was helping my mom and dad.”

Look closely.

Listen carefully.

Teaching is more, much more, than a banking model where we deposit knowledge into the minds of our students.

Teaching is a liberating model where we teach the whole child and walk along beside them to help them share the gifts of themselves to the world.

We laugh deeply with them when they tell a silly joke.

We dry their tears with our shoulders when they fall and scrape their knees on the playground.

We offer them a place of comfort and rest when they rise up in the middle of the night to take their moms to work so their families can have enough food, shelter and clothing to simply live.

We care.

We love.

We are there.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 43

I think humility is the most important trait a person can possess.

If you’re as old as I am, you might remember the old Mac Davis song O Lord It’s Hard To Be Humble.

“O Lord, it’s hard to be humble,” goes the song, “When you’re perfect in every way.”

I’m very much the opposite of that song.

“O Lord, it’s easy to be humble,” is my theme song, “When you’re flawed in so many ways.”

I’m okay with that, though.

It’s good to be humble when you’re a teacher and a writer.

I have a secret, though.

Want to hear it?

In the deepest part of my heart, there is a spot of pridefulness that would LOVE to win a MacArthur Genius award.

Do you know that award?

Every year, the MacArthur Foundation chooses a group of people from many different walks of life doing many different things to help the world to become a MacArthur fellow.

They give each fellow a boat load of money to use to work on any project their heart desires to work on.

Boy do I have some writing projects in my heart!

But, you know what?

For a public schoolteacher, the equivalent to winning a MacArthur Genius Award is to have a student write about you.

This happened to me.

I was teaching a little student named Paola how to read on grade level.

Near the end of the school year, she wrote this about me.

“I got the greatest teacher named Mr. Barton! He is the teacher who has books! He reads to me! He takes me to the hallway and reads to me almost every day! I like when he reads to me but sometimes I read to him! I like Mr. Barton! He is nice to me! I am nice to him too! The end.”

Look at all of the exclamation marks. To be exclamation marked by a student 8 times in one story is one of the greatest honors I’ve ever received!

I humbly accept that honor.

I’m thankful for it.

And I’m thankful for Paola.

I went on to write about her here - http://thirdwaycafe.com/day-paola-taught-teacher-lesson-kindness/

I’m sure she’s out there in the big, wide world making it a better place for all of us.

That’s genius enough for me🙂

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 42

Being a school teacher is like being a farmer.

Farmer work is tending crops.

Teacher work is tending students.

Both farmer and teacher drop blood, sweat and tears into their work.

Will their crops be able to feed the world around them?

Will their students become all that they can be and make the world a better place for everyone?

We look closely, listen carefully, work diligently, love tenderly and hope.

This year I have a student who reminds me of a tomato my grandpa and I grew in his garden on Hudson Road.

Let me tell you a story and show you what I mean.

Early in summer, when more and more tomatoes were changing from shades of green to shades of red, my grandpa and I set out first thing one morning to check on the ripening fruit.

When you are a farmer, there is a thankfulness deep inside of you when the growing is almost done and the harvesting is about to begin.

You yourself are in the crop, and the crop is in you.

I came across a tomato that was developing a dark, soft spot on its skin.

This tomato was much smaller than the other tomatoes on the vine.

It was at the bottom of the vine and very nearly touched the ground.

- I'm gonna pick this one and throw it out. It has a blight on it.

- Don't pick that tomato. Listen, I want to teach you something about the world. Follow me.

I followed him, as I always did.

We walked out of the garden and into the work shed at the back of the yard.

That place was a place of wonder to me.

Inside of it were mason jars filled with nuts, bolts, screws and nails.

There were all sorts of tools hanging on the walls.

And at the center of it all were the things I will always remember him by - Duck Tape, baling wire, WD 40 and aloe.

Not only could these things fix the stalled engine of a tractor, a sputtering faucet in a sink, or a dangling clothes line on a pole.

They could also create a basketball rim (he wove one out of baling wire and hung it above the door of the shed for me), assuage arthritic knees (he used to spray WD 40 on his knees in the early morning to help him get around), and cure the common cold (he would drop a mixture of aloe and water into my nose to sooth my scratchy throat).

If you are looking for a miracle, find a farmer with those things and you will find one.

- Hey, that tomato is small, broken and at the bottom. But you know what? It could grow into something beautiful if we care for it. Who knows, it might become the tastiest tomato we've ever grown. So let's be the ones who don't throw it out. Let's be the ones who take it in. Let's be the ones who care.

He carefully cut out a square and two rectangles from some old plastic pieces he stored in the corner of the building.

He bound them together with some Duck Tape.

He sprayed the edges with WD 40.

We made our way back to the garden and to the small, broken lowly tomato.

He held the tomato in his calloused hands and ever so gently spread aloe over the blighted part.

He attached the hand made shelter around the tomato with baling wire.

- This will protect it from the heat of the sun and keep it off of the ground. This will give it a chance.

The small, the broken and the lowly have worth and beauty.

We could throw them away, but wouldn’t it be better to put in the faith, hope and love to care for them?

That kind of care could mend a broken world.

My little student is broken in many ways.

Life can do that to a nine year old heart.

It’s a very painful thing to see.

She’s like the little, blighted tomato at the bottom of the vine.

But, you know what?

I’m going to do what my grandpa taught me to do.

I’m going to take her into my heart.

I’m going to care.

I’m going to do all I can to give her a chance.

I’m going to remember her worth and beauty as a human being Every. Single. Day.

Today, she opened her book bag.

“I made something for you, Mr. Barton,” she said.

She handed me a yellow piece of construction paper (my favorite color, by the way) filled on both sides with facts about our Milky Way Galaxy.

This little, blighted tomato of a students might just become an astronaut for NASA.

All from a proverbial bit of Duck Tape, baling wire, WD 40 and aloe from her ever loving teacher.

Deep in my heart, I know she’ll make the world a better place for everyone.

She’s already made it a better place for me.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 41

I am not a dancer.

Ask anyone who knows me well.

When I dance, I look like one of the Peanuts gang weebling and wobbling around Schroeder’s piano.

I am a ‘try’er, though.

It’s quite humorous to watch me dance.

It’s also kind of endearing.

That’s why the fourth graders at my school and the firemen and firewoman at the Berea fire station laughed so deeply and hugged me so tenderly today.

We were on a field trip at the fire station.

In the middle of learning about fire safety, we had a dance break.

As the music started, the students around me started yelling, “Go Mr. Barton! Go!”

To humor them, I stood up and started weebling and wobbling on the bleachers.

Then it happened.

A firemen stood in front of me.

No, he didn’t say, “Stop dancing right now!”

He said, “Follow me.”

I did.

He led me down to the asphalt in front of the bleachers and in front of EVERYBODY.

Guess what?

I danced!

My weebling and wobbling acted like a magnet that drew the kids from the bleachers.

Suddenly they were all around me.

They were really dancing!

You should’ve seen them whip and nae nae.

It was amazing.

It was fun.

As a teacher and a writer, I often weeble and wobble.

I am a ‘try’er.

That means something, you know.

And by trying I show I care.

And by caring I have the privilege to change a life.

And by changing a life I have the opportunity to change the world.

So come weeble and wobble with me.

Come change the world with me.

I’d love to see you dance.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 41

I am not a dancer.

Ask anyone who knows me well.

When I dance, I look like one of the Peanuts gang weebling and wobbling around Schroeder’s piano.

I am a ‘try’er, though.

It’s quite humorous to watch me dance.

It’s also kind of endearing.

That’s why the fourth graders at my school and the firemen and firewoman at the Berea fire station laughed so deeply and hugged me so tenderly today.

We were on a field trip at the fire station.

In the middle of learning about fire safety, we had a dance break.

As the music started, the students around me started yelling, “Go Mr. Barton! Go!”

To humor them, I stood up and started weebling and wobbling on the bleachers.

Then it happened.

A firemen stood in front of me.

No, he didn’t say, “Stop dancing right now!”

He said, “Follow me.”

I did.

He led me down to the asphalt in front of the bleachers and in front of EVERYBODY.

Guess what?

I danced!

My weebling and wobbling acted like a magnet that drew the kids from the bleachers.

Suddenly they were all around me.

They were really dancing!

You should’ve seen them whip and nae nae.

It was amazing.

It was fun.

As a teacher and a writer, I often weeble and wobble.

I am a ‘try’er.

That means something, you know.

And by trying I show I care.

And by caring I have the privilege to change a life.

And by changing a life I have the opportunity to change the world.

So come weeble and wobble with me.

Come change the world with me.

I’d love to see you dance.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 40

I love my MLL’s (Multilingual learners).

So much.

In my elementary school in the west end of Greenville, most of my MLL’s come from Mexico, Central America and South America.

I’m thankful they’re here in Greenville.

I’m thankful we’re a part of each others lives.

I think my deep empathy for them and their families comes from my time as an MLL in Mali in West Africa.

I remember clearly what it was like spending a whole day hearing a new language and being unable to speak words and phrases I wanted to speak

After a particularly tough day working in the local market, my brain and ears were exhausted from hearing Malinke.

I simply started saying, “Iyo,” to everyone who said anything to me.

That means, “Yes,” in English.

The next morning, a man pushed his brother on a bicycle to our mission station.

“We’re here,” said the man.

“Why?” asked my friend Musa.

“I asked that guy if he would fly my brother to the capital city and he said, “Iyo.”

Guess what?

I was that guy.

Oops.

I said, “Iyo,” to questions I didn’t understand.

I had neither the ways nor the means to fly the man’s brother to the capital city.

I learned an important lesson.

The best response to questions when I was exhausted was, “N’segeta,” which simply means, “I’m tired."

That's how my MLL's must feel.

Tired.

They hear English all the school day long.

They get very little break from it.

So one of my goals each day is to inspire them.

I use that word in the old way.

To give them breath to breathe.

To hug them first thing in the morning, look them deeply in their earthy brown eyes and say, “¡Bienvevenido!”, “Welcome!” and mean it with all my heart.

To stay beside them all through the day and ask over and over again, “What can I do to help?”

To ask them to teach me something from their home country so they can see me as a caring learner just as they are.

To use my favorite boxing metaphor, to show them that I am in their corner and, if they get knocked down, I’ll lift them up, brush them off, and send them back out into the ring shouting directions for ways they can make it to the end of the round.

This inspiring seem to be working with my students.

On Friday afternoon, just before he walked out of the school door, one of my students named Jhan handed me a gift.

It’s a tiny origami hat with some symbols from his home country of Colombia on it.

He knows I love origami.

He is a perceptive looker and listener.

He made it for me and gave it to me as if to tell me, “Mr. Barton, with you by my side I think I can make it. You inspire me. I can breathe.”

His hard work, thoughtfulness and grit lets me know he is by my side and gives me hope that I can make it. That I can breathe.

For this I am agradecido.

I am thankful.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 39

One of my favorite writers, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, once wrote, “Beauty will save the world.”

I’ve often wondered, “What does this mean?”

On the side of my college ring from UNC Chapel Hill is etched the Latin motto Esse Quam Videri, which is translated into English as, “To be, rather than to seem.”

Or in the good ol’Trevor translation, “The essence is more important than the video.”

That’s true, right.

In most every person, place or thing, when we look closely and listen carefully, when we get down to the essence, we find astonishing beauty.

World saving beauty.

This morning, as I stood in front of my classroom door to welcome my 4th graders in, I found that kind of beauty.

Or, rather, that kind of beauty found me.

It came in the hands of Karen T Pearson, my friend and colleague at my elementary school.

“Mr. Barton,” she said with a smile on her face and great tenderness in her eyes, “The stories you write every day in your Notes from Public School inspire me. So, to say thank you, I asked our kindergartners to color pictures of narwhal whales for you. Some of them created pictures of me and you on the back! I made them into a book of pictures just for you.”

The cover was titled Never Forget the Difference You Make.

Wow.

That’s the special word I use when I’m thunderstruck by kindness.

And, boy, was I thunderstruck by kindness.

You know I love whales, don’t you?

For the past 10 years I’ve worked hard to become a whale genius.

Along the way I’ve learned ‘lots about cetaceans, how wonderful they are in the world.

Take the narwhal, for example.

Did you know narwhals are some of the most compassionate creatures on Earth?

They are.

As a matter of fact, if a narwhal breaks its horn, which is really an expansive tooth, another narwhal will gently place the tip of its hornlike tooth into the broken part of its compadres tooth to help assuage the pain and offer a balm for the ache.

How we as human beings can learn from the narwhal.

How much compassion did Mrs. Pearson and her kindergartners show a tired 4th grade teacher on a normal Monday morning during the first days of school?

Enough to bring beauty into my life.

Beauty that can transform a teachers heart.

Beauty that can save the world.

Beauty.

¡Muchas Gracias! Karen Pearson.

¡Muchas Gracias kindergartners.

Thanks for the grace and the beauty you’ve shown to me.

I may never when a Pulitzer Prize, or a MacArthur Genius Grant or a Nobel Prize for my writing.

But deep in my heart, I know I’ve won something deeper those seeing awards

I’ve win the essence of love.

And nothing can touch you as deeply as that essence.

For it sinks into the deepest marrows of my life.

¡Muchas, Muchas Gracias, mi Amigos!

¡Gracias, Gracias, Gracias

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 38

When I lived in Mali, my friends taught me an African proverb - “I am because we are. We are because I am.”

This is ubuntu.

Compassion and humanity.

I love it.

I try to live it, too.

My school is a part of me.

I am a part of my school.

The world is a part of me.

I am a part of the world.

My community is a part of me.

I am a part of my community.

If I give my gifts and talents, if I give myself, to my community, then it becomes a more human community.

If my community gives it’s gifts and talents to me, if it gives itself, to me, then I become a more human human being.

We become.

Together.

That’s the way community works.

I tried to write this proverb into a small story.

Here it is.

Gabby took the bus home to her apartment.

“Cómo estás, Luisa?” she asked the small woman in the window seat as she sat down beside her.

“Bien,” she answered. “A little tired. I cleaned a lot of rooms at the motel today. Y tu?”

“Si, bien. Un poco cansado, tambien. I scrambled a lot of eggs at the Scrambled Egg. I can’t wait to put my feet up and rest them. What you doing this evening?”

“I’m going to cook for my family and take my daughter to help me clean the doctor’s office. Then I’ll rest.”

Gabby put her arm around Luisa’s shoulder and hugged her.

“Eres una buena mujer,” she said. I’m glad you’re my friend.

“Y tu, mi Amiga. Y tu.”

Gabby got off the bus in front of her apartment on the west side of the city. She lived on the west side of town. She and her neighbors didn’t have much money, but they did have a lot of kindness for each other.

‘Sup Gabby. How you doin’?” asked Bryant, who everyone called Big B. He had just come home from his job as a mechanic at the auto shop.

“Hola Big B. Not much. Just glad to be home. How was your day?”

“It was all good. The squeaky wheel got the grease, as they say, today and ev’ry day.”

“One of these days I’m gonna buy a car and the only person I’m gonna let work on it is you.”

“Deal. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing! Same here.”

“You could come over and cook up some steak and eggs for me, you know.”

“Ugh, anything except that. I’ve cooked enough steak and eggs today...and ev’ry day!”

“Bet. I’m jus’ kiddin’ wit’ cha. Night Gabby. Take care.”

“Night B. You take care, too.”

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 37

Be the feet of the people

Be the hands of the people

Be the cries of the people

Be the songs of the people

Be the poems of the people

Be the blister on the campesino's foot

Be the callous on the farmer's hand

Be the tear on the child's cheek

Be the freedom song

Be a poem

Be the feet that march together

Be the hands that join the work

Be the cloth that wipes away the tear

Be the song that inspires courage

Be the heart of the people

Be

We

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 36

I’ve always loved underdogs.

Well, except in college basketball.

I’m a UNC-CH graduate, you know.

And the Tar Heels are seldom the underdog.

(Yes, I know that after last season we might be underdogs this year. Enough with the jokes already.)

But in general, both in sports and in life, you’ll find me pulling for the underdog.

This is why I choose to teach in a Title I school.

Most of the students I teach are black and brown kids.

They come from economically poor families.

They look closely and listen carefully to the world around them.

Do you know what they see and hear?

Politicians who build their own careers and fortunes by demonizing them.

People who believe, in word and in deed, that their lives don’t matter.

They are underdogs.

But you know what?

Every day throughout the school year I meet them at my classroom door with a fist bump and a smile to let them know that I am on their side.

I tell them over and over again how beautiful, ingenious, wonderful and courageous they are.

I pour out my heart, soul, mind and strength for them.

They are underdogs.

And I love them.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 35

I love the word ‘echo.’

To think that I can call out a word and have it come back to me is astonishing.

In the deepest part of my heart, I believe kindness is like an echo.

When I give out kindness, it comes back to me.

I gave out kindness last Thursday.

One of my little 4th graders, Arianna, walked up to my table and said, “Mr. Barton, I’m so sad.”

Working in a Title I elementary school for 16 years has accustomed me to sadness.

I’ve caught many a 9-year-old’s tears on my shoulder.

“Why are you sad?” I asked. “Do you want to tell me? I’m all ears.”

“My violin broke,” she said.

In those 16 years, I’ve never heard that reason for a sad heart.

“Wow!” I said. “You play the violin?”

“Sí,” she said. A lady gave it to my mamí. Then mamí gave it to me. I’m teaching myself to play! But I broke it.”

In true Trevor fashion, I immediately told her I could find someone to fix it.

But guess what?

I don’t know a violin fixer.

My heart often speaks before my brain.

“You can?” she asked. “¡Muchas Gracias, Mr. Barton! Muchas, Muchas Gracias!”

I love the word ‘gracias.’ Do you hear the word ‘grace’ in it? So beautiful.

The next day, she placed her violin in my hands

“I don’t know a violin fixer,” I thought to myself. “But I do have musical friends.”

One of those musical friends is helping me get her violin repaired.

Do you see, can you hear, how kindness echoes?

And who knows.

Perhaps Arianna will one day play her violin at The Julliard School.

I only know that her sonrisa made my heart smile.

That’s how kindness works.

That’s how it comes back to us.

In wonderful, beautiful ways.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 34

Yesterday on S.C. Public Radio, I heard a snippet of a story about a doctor who is also a poet (or a poet who is also a doctor - I’m not sure which).

The story pricked my ears and my heart as I drove along Pleasantburg Drive toward the YMCA swimming pool, because I think of myself as a teacher poet.

In the story, the doctor said, “As I work, I often see myself as being in a poem.”

I was thunderstruck.

“Wow,” I thought, “What would it be like for me at school tomorrow if I think of myself as being in a poem?”

I carried that question with me as I walked through the doors of BES at 7:15 AM this morning.

I walked past the cafeteria and heard my name echo through the doors and around the corner where I had turned toward the 4th grade hall.

I turned around.

“Yes?” I called.

Magda appeared at the cafeteria door.

She ran toward me.

She held a styrofoam container wrapped in a plastic bag in her hands.

“Mr. Barton,” she said, “Buenos Dias. My mamí made lunch for you today!”

“Your mamí made lunch for me?” I asked.

“Sí,” she said. “I told her you love Spanish food so she made empanadas and rice for you.”

She handed me my lunch with a sweet, kind sonrisa - a smile that was a sunrise to me.

Even now, as I mine the depths of my brain and my heart to find the words to express my feelings about that moment, I just can’t find them.

It was a moment of simple kindness.

The kind of kindness that can change the world.

It was a poetic moment.

I once heard someone say, “Be a poem.”

I love that saying.

I repeat it to myself over and over again on many mornings when I open my eyes to the new day.

Today, Magda and her mamí were poems to me.

And I am thankful.

[notesfrompublicschool-blog]

Notes from Public School (2023-2024) - Day 33

There’s a little known fact about me that you probably don’t know.

I hate SpongeBob’s laugh.

You might be thinking, “Trevor? Hates something?”

And you’d be right.

I tend to give the world the benefit of the doubt.

I’m a lover not a hater.

Except when it comes to SpongeBob’s laugh.

While the world might not know that I hate SpongeBob’s laugh, my whole school does.

“If I have one nerve left after teaching all day,” I tell my students year after year, “Then SpongeBob’s laugh gets on it.”

A few years ago, in the last hour of the last day of school, a friend of mine and her class made SpongeBob characters out of modeling clay and put them on a table in front of my classroom door.

They knocked.

When I opened the door, they erupted into a rousing SpongeBob laugh!

I fell on the floor in a pretend swoon.

They loved it!

So did I.

So today I pretended to be thunderstruck when one of my students stopped by my desk, said, “Mr. Barton, I was at the mall yesterday and bought this for you!” and handed me a SpongeBob lanyard.

“No you did not!” I exclaimed.

“Oh yes I did!” she retorted.

Then the whole class SpongeBob laughed me.

Of course, I feigned irritation.

My face was filled with the look of incredulity.

I have to keep up my anti-SpongeBob laugh credentials, you know.

But in my heart, oh in my heart, I was filled with awe and wonder at the love my little student showed to me.

She made my day.

She made my year.

I didn’t let out a SpongeBob laugh.

But I certainly smiled a SpongeBob smile.

A smile that I’m still smiling late on this Friday afternoon.