A milestone: no millstone

Last year, a colleague found me laboring under a pile of grading that I didn’t know how to manage.  I was trying to correct every spelling and grammatical error in every paper, and I was lost. Adrift.  At sea.  It couldn’t be done, and I’d built up a massive backlog of grading that I didn’t know how to complete or work around.

She taught me a new way.  ”You’re not their editor,” she said. “Editors and proofreaders get paid to do that kind of detail work.  Your job is to get them to explain their thinking in detail, to mandate that they tackle hard questions, and that they include facts to support their arguments, whatever those arguments might be.”

Her process that she asked me to try out was to go through each set of assignments with an eye to making 1-2 positive comments, ask a question or two about comment, and demand clarification where it seemed to be necessary.  I’ve been trying this technique on and off for about a year, and something about it clicked tonight.  Today.

My papers are graded.  I’m leaving school today with all my grading done, and no papers in my school bag for the first time in a year.  Maybe for the first time in my teaching career, too, I’m leaving school with a feeling that I’ve graded student papers properly and accurately and suitably, and that I can really dig in to plan the next few days of school without worrying about the student papers piling up.

It’s a good feeling.  Thanks, K!

Colonizing the Moon

It’s typical — I find out that we’re (NASA) going to work with the Russian and European space agencies to colonize the moon, from a blog about magic.

We live in an age of miracle and wonder, when we’re learning as much about the past as we are about the future, and our sense of the world in which we live is being shaped and re-shaped by all sorts of weirdness, regularly.  Gordon at Rune Soup does an irregular feature where he points at the prior history of our planet as being full of serious oddities.  There is a dominant narrative of history in the Western world, and the evidence has been accumulating for quite some time that the World History course I taught for 15 years (while more or less knowing it was full of holes), needs to be elaborately re-narrated.  Not with crazy stories of ancient aliens or visitors from Sirius, necessarily, but at least to acknowledge that the Americas were probably settled (fully settled) more than 100,000 years ago, and that this is not the first time that people on opposite sides of the planet have been able to communicate and trade with one another.

And now we’re talking about going back to space, and going with the intention to stay.  I think of the miracles and wonders that may lie ahead, and I’m hopeful.  I’m also a little fearful, because voices I respect suggest that this is yet another bubble to inflate that may all yet come crashing down.  Still, Dum spiro… spero.

When Your Work Stinks

Brushes Painting: 24th Mansion
Originally uploaded by anselm23

Yesterday, after I got weary of grading papers, I did some experimentation with Brushes, the digital painting program for my iPhone, and did this miniature of the 24th Mansion of the Moon. The Angel Abrinael watches over this image, which is that of a woman giving suck (or comfort, or milk) to her son.

I’m not thrilled with the image. In fact, I think it’s terrible. The woman is too tired, not at all enthusiastic for this child in her arms. This is supposed to be an image of prosperity and vigor, and instead it comes across as a world-weary and beaten-down image. I hope it’s received in the mindset which it’s supposed to convey, and not in the way I actually created it.

It is of course, a type of the Madonna and child. The hair is similar to the hair of a gal I know who has dreadlocks, and the dress is the blue I associate with the Virgin Mary. There are things about it that I like, but it definitely needs some serious re-working.

It’s also the first time I’ve really used layers in an image. This image has three layers — the lettering, the woman, and the border. All three layers really need more work (and I wish I had the ability to grid or make straight lines in the image, but BRUSHES doesn’t allow for that kind of fine control, unless you have that control in your hands.

I’ve written about this problem before, though — as has Ira Socol and lots of other artists and performers and writers and theoreticians and so on. One’s first efforts rarely live up to the hype of the initial intention. I’m no more capable of painting a Leonardo DaVinci Madonna masterpiece than Leonardo was when he was five years old. I’m still learning my tools, I’m still learning the underlying artistic skills that go into making something beautiful, possible.

So often, when we teachers give a student a bad grade, we’re discouraging them from continuing to produce great artwork or great writing. But this is in fact the opposite of what a master artist would do to a student, isn’t it?

The master artist, or master magician, or master teacher — the master, regardless — says, “here, do not draw her body this way, as you have here… draw it this way. Tug the line of her mouth upward, and narrow the shadows on her neck. Use different pigments and hues to color her face. What is the source of the light that illumines her? Where is it? How does it strike her to create shadow?”

The work continues, regardless of whether or not we become perfect artists or magicians or students or writers or poets or scientists. We do not achieve exactitude — we discover instead that there is more to learn. The first painting of a Mansion of the Moon is an initiation, a starting place for further refinement and further lessons, not an end point.

Welcome (back) to the beginning of the work. AGAIN.

Via Flickr:
The 24th Mansion of the Moon, an image of a woman with her son, was used for the increase and protection of herds of cattle (at least according to the explanatory text). I’ve never done the 24th Mansion before, and I’m not particularly happy with how this version came out. But yesterday I had a tiny baby in my arms who was not even as long as my forearm. I think this woman looks too tired, and not up to the challenges of raising the baby — a little too down, perhaps, for an image representing the increase of prosperity. So I’ll be re-doing this image the next time that I have time to draw when this Mansion comes around.

For St. Jude (whenever)

Rose Weaver told a rather interesting story about St. Jude over on her blog, and I felt inspired to write a poem of thanks to Jude as a result:

Mighty Saint Jude, protector of the lost,
guardian of the needy and friendless!
You open doors just when we need them most —
the blessings of your bounties are endless.
Perfect is your help when the time is right,
so perfect, indeed, that all stand in shock,
for without fanfare or showers of light,
you open paths even through solid rock.
Therefore we may call you a quantum saint,
doling out miracles in quiet way:
Though hope be lost, you resolve our complaint,
reshaping the world like potters shape clay.
Saint Jude, I give thanks for your gracious aid
that solved my troubles when I was afraid.

Elizabeth Gilbert, of  Eat Pray Love fame, did that TED Talk I love so much about becoming aware of the concept of the genius, and how knowing or at least believing that the creative spirit was outside herself, actually helped her write better.  I think that praying to the saints — Celtic or otherwise — is kind of like that.  When we put the source of the solution to a problem outside ourselves, while at the same time connecting the solution to the divine, we give the Universe space to imagine a genuinely creative solution to the problem.

The beauty of it is, the solution winds up looking brilliantly ordinary.  And holy at the same time.  Congratulations, Rose.