May 9, 2014 Teaching and Learning
Test
(A Glimpse From My Classroom Window
While Students Take a State Math Exam)
©May 9th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Trees, a brick wall
Fighting a grey sky.
Glass windows reflect
And reflect back
Human and non-human images,
Fleeting and busy, still and silent,
Over-layered, screen upon screen
While cars flow by,
An easy stream, swift and sure,
On a road where sound
May or may not exist.
Not in my quiet classroom, anyway –
Here, where heads are bent
Over official papers
Lives the Mind,
Where only the rustle of papers,
And the scratch of pencils,
And the shuffle of abstracted
Student feet reveal a Supreme Force –
Thought, turned into abstract
Abstruse, enigmatic
Symbol, a language not
Everyone masters, but which
Life and Matter know.
Cellular and atomic
Is their knowledge.
And the Laws were
Already written, before
My students and I
Before everyone,
And everything,
Everywhere, everywhen,
Ever were.
___________________________________________________________
Tags: #Original Poetry, atomic and cellular, classroom moments, exams, Laws, mathematics, Students, teacher, universal laws
Apr 4, 2013 Original Poetry, Teaching and Learning
Teacher: A Glimpse As I Passed By
(For Val)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 4, 2013
Almost in the abyss,
A young boy howls in
Soul-agony, a torment
That he cannot understand.
He sobs, beast-desolate
In the hallway, uncluttered
By others.
I approach,
And see this:
Kindly teacher,
Clad in blue
Pats him gently,
Inexpressibly kind.
“It’ll be all right.
You’ll be fine.”
Her voice like soothing
Balm in Gilead,
Pours solace on his
Strange, wounded mind.
(For he is undeniably
Different from the others.)
Her goodness, a candle
Steady in his darkness,
Completely undoes him.
I walk by, heading elsewhere,
And try not to intrude.
He howls louder,
Lurches against her.
She hugs him with such love —
A well-spring
Of love, she is
An angel of beauty
An angel of warmth
Goodness glowing golden,
Like an energy-field
Around her.
All the comfort he needs
He finds right here,
In her enveloping frame
All the goodness nestled
In the encircling warmth
Of her motherly embrace.
And no matter what this child
Suffered today, whatever else
Torments, grips and twists
His grief-stricken heart,
He will remember this:
When he was most
Desolate and undone,
When he was most
Alone and abyssal,
There was someone.
And she leaned
Over the abyss
Plucked him up,
And brought him back
From the brink.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #kindness, #Loneliness, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, Abyss, Autistic Spectrum, Brink, Comfort, Education with soul, Goodness, grief, Misery, Saving, Special Education Student, teacher, Teaching the young
Feb 10, 2013 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
I am, first and forever, a dreamer of dreams.
In the real world, I am a teacher of eighth-graders.
I am a wife and a mother.
I am a musician, a singer-songwriter, a guitarist, a sitarist, a poet and writer, a keeper of beats, a tapper of taps on the side of objects.
I wander in dreams a lot, except that now, I have to be practical and proper, a mother and a teacher in the real world. Leaves little time for dreaming, but I persevere, I persevere.
If I had my way, I would never wake up. Never. I love sleep, as one would love a lover. I never get enough sleep. This is a crazy world we live in.
I would love to find my way back to the stars, whence my atoms formed themselves. I would love to curl up inside the tiny compressed state of mind known as the darkness before the Big Bang.
But enough! Welcome to my blog. Leave me a note letting me know who you are, if you feel so inclined. Be gentle.
~Vijaya
Tags: Big Bang, dreamer, mother, musician, poet, Sleep, teacher, writer