The Writer's Poke

When I was younger, I used to think that Spring Break was the time to party. I thought everyone was flying to the Caribbean or Mexico, drinking way too much, and doing way too many things they shouldn’t be doing. I guess I was somewhat jealous, too, because I never had a ticket to Spring Break hedonism. I stayed at home. I looked at my class schedules, and I thought about how I could utilize the week to prepare for the rest of the semester. Sometimes it felt like I was the only student in the United States that bothered to use Spring Break this way. The Spring Break that stands out in my mind the most, maybe, is the one that I dedicated to the Toni Morrison. I had a Toni Morrison/Richard Wright class, and I read Tar Baby, Song of Solomon, and Jazz. That was my Spring Break, reading those three books. When I look back on it now, I call it my Spring Break with Toni. Now that I’m an instructor, I realize that most students don’t go on vacation during Spring Break....

  I don’t know if there’s an “ideal age,” but when I dream I’m often times younger – generally between 15 and 25. In fact, I can’t recall ever having a dream where I’ve been older than my actual age. Last night I had a dream, and I was about 20 years old. As some dreams can, it felt so real, and I felt as though I had my whole life ahead of me. I was planning out what I wanted to do with the next twenty years of my life. When I woke up, I was excited by the prospects of the plan. I woke up having my life all figured out. And then I realized I had already lived those 20 years. What I’ve done with those twenty years hasn’t been bad, but I will never have the opportunity, so far as I know, to relive them. What’s done is done. Perhaps this is why it’s so fun to dream yourself as being younger. It’s the closest way we’ll ever have to reliving our lives. That’s what it’s about, really. Reliving life – not just reliving the past. I have little interest in reliving my life...

The snow comes down steadily, like the promise of freedom. By tomorrow, we are supposed to have up to 13 inches, but it doesn’t fall quickly enough for the hundreds of kids hoping and longingfor a snow day. Think of all of the children praying for a Snow Day – a day without classes. A day without school books and teachers’ nasty looks. I’ve often heard college students complain that colleges never cancel classes. That’s not 100% true, but it is true that colleges don’t cancel classes as a rule; I suppose the main reason is that colleges don’t use school buses to transport students. But college students will often make the decision for themselves on whether or not the weather is a good enough excuse to skip. Can you imagine anyone with P!nk tickets longing for a snow day cancellation? That’s inconceivable, right? Or, imagine if you had airplane tickets to Miami. You would be very upset if the snow delayed your trip. School, I guess, doesn’t rank up there with a P!nk ...

I like to watch football, but I couldn’t tell you much about what happened last season. I do remember who won the Super Bowl, but that’s just because it happened a few weeks ago. Who won the past five Super Bowls? I don’t have any idea, do you? And how did all of the hours I spent watching football last season improve the life I’m living today? Unfortunately, I can’t honestly say that any of that time spent was an investment in my future well being. We all need our diversions, and I’ll continue to watch football. Nevertheless, I recognize that I need more in my life than football to be content. I need to engage in activities that have lasting value. When I spend too much time just “killing time,” I feel unsatisfied. In fact, more than feeling unsatisfied, I even feel angry; and I feel depressed. Staying engaged in activities that matter takes some dedication; it is work to stay out of the rut, but ultimately, it’s much more fulfilling. This year I made it a goal to go t...

I found a quarter in the parking lot the other day, and I smiled as I picked it up.  “Guess what,” I told my wife later that night, “I found a quarter today.”  “Good for you,” she said, without any sense of sarcasm. I had no immediate need or use for the quarter, and I threw it into the change bin in the kitchen. At some point it will contribute to the purchase of a cup of coffee, perhaps. Obviously a quarter doesn’t mean much these days, but I suspect that most people still take the trouble to bend over to pick one up when they see one. The point is, the quarter has value even if it has no immediate use, and even if it isn't worth much by itself.  Every day I go into the classroom, I feel like, metaphorically-speaking, I’m giving each of my students the chance to pick up a quarter. Heck, most days, I feel like I’m literally giving each of my students the opportunity to earn back the equivalent of one class period’s tuition. And yet, I don’t a...

In his TED Talk entitled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a little girl in art class. When an adult asked her what she was drawing, she said, “I’m drawing God.”  “But how can you draw God?” asked the adult. “No one knows what He looks like.”  “They will in a minute,” she replied. What a great response, and how true. This little girl has just as much right to decide what God looks like as anyone else, and yet there are some people that claim the right to tell us what God looks like. But just as we cannot know what God looks like, we also cannot know what God “wants," although again, there are plenty of people that will try to tell us what He wants. Why do we let them? The adult in Robinson’s story above does not give the child the worst response possible, as a far worse response would have been for the adult to tell the girl what God looks like. Most people have no real sense of God, other than what they’ve been told. Mo...