Losing Moon - An Anecdote

(Losing Moon – an anecdote Draft copy) It was a blustery November day. I parked the car in front of the garage and began retrieving items that needed to go into the house. I opened the car door expecting Moon to be sticking her nose into the car with her low woofs greeting me. No wet nose accosted me as I swung my legs out the door. I figured she was snuggled up in her kennel given that the wind was picking up and the ground was already lightly covered with a dusting of snow. With arms laden and my keys jingling in my hand, I navigated my way to the front door. Flipping on the side light that shines toward her kennel, I ventured back outside for the rest of the groceries poking my head into her kennel intent on coaxing her out to say hello. There was no response to my call and when I looked closer, there was no sign of her in the structure. Strange but maybe she was out on one of her little “tours of duty” around the farm so I carried on unloading the car, unpacking and organizing the items on the pantry shelf before turning my thoughts to making dinner. With dinner on the stove, I had just enough daylight left to go for my nightly walk while it simmered. I shrugged into my coat and grabbed my gloves, calling Moon as I closed the door when I remembered that I still hadn’t seen her yet. My heart gave a little lurch and the questions rose in my head. Where was she? Did my husband have her with him? Did someone leave her in the tractor again? Was she down “visiting” at Terry’s place? I called. I whistled and called again. Nothing. My mind begins to race along with my pulse. Where is she then? My thoughts start turning toward the possibilities… No! She is fine I tell myself. Still, glancing out at the blowing snow and daylight fading quickly, I think I better go check out the tractor and take a look around. The wind caught my coat before I have a chance to zip it up and I realize that this is the beginning of the change of fall into winter. Moon, I call, come on girl. Walking toward the feedlot I call and call her. She must be in the tractor I think and my anger flares as I think about who left her in there this time. My breath comes faster and my pace quickens as my annoyance at having to rescue you her because someone forgot about her. I tuck my head down as I move against the wind, making my way to the door of the tractor. I don’t even really look as I open the door to the tractor, just say” come on let’s go home” But when the black and white shape doesn’t appear, I stare into the cab. No dog. Now my heart pounds , my head begins to ache and I feel breathless as fear and panic start to rise. I begin to call her loudly now and take out my cell phone to call my husband to see if he knows where she is. He hadn’t seen her since lunch. It’s getting dark fast and the snow is coming more steadily. Stop, I tell myself. Think. I can cover more ground if I drive around so I jump in the car calling her from the window and shining my lights into the field. I stop and turn off the engine. I think I hear a whimpering. I call her again and then I see a shape dusted by snow. Is that her? Why is she just laying there. I hear it again. A soft , high whine. She’s here! I call my husband for help. My face is wet as we load her into the hatchback. She lays very still and I only know she is still alive by her shallow breathing. I am talking to her softly, stroking her and telling her she is okay now all the while brushing the snow off her coat. We bring her onto the porch, and lay her out on the blanket someone brings up from the basement. She flinches as we set her down. I am having an internal conversation at the same time I am speaking to her in soothing tones. Inside: She will be okay. Out loud “It’s all right, girl.” Let’s get her by the fire! It’s okay now. You are home. I kick into “we can fix this mode”, willing her to live. She lays very still and then finally takes a breath again. I realize I have been holding my breather along with her. I take deep breaths. “ Come on, come on” you aren’t ready for this or is it me who isn’t ready for her to leave? Inside I am thinking who will walk with me? My companion who is also my sounding board, who listens to me debrief my day expressing my frustrations and pleasures of the day. My chest feels heavy and yet I am strangely energized, feeling the need to stay busy. I check her every few minutes. We finally sit down to dinner and the talk is of Moon and what we should do next. After the plates are cleared and I return to see her, there is no sound. There is no movement. A sob escapes as her names rises on my lips and the tears come. I go to her. My hands tremble as I stroke her and talk to her and tell it is over now. I see her as a puppy running around and around. I see her chasing the stick until I am too tired to throw it anymore and she is still staring at it for more! I see her with perk ears watching the grass intently for a mouse. I see her nipping at the cows heals as she brings them to the gate. I see her on my son’s lap when he was nine. And suddenly I am tired and feeling leaden. I wipe the tears and sigh, as the loss begins to sink in. I will miss her.

Reflection

Phenomenological source and reflection: HUNGER “FEED the children.” “Save little Haruk from the fate of his older brother.” Children with extended bellies stare at us with huge eyes from the television screen and prey on our conscience. The advertisement for Children International continues... and my thoughts turn to food as my stomach rumbles. What is it like to experience hunger? Not just the “I missed breakfast” hunger but rather the hunger of days, months, years. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens paints a powerful picture of the hungry and downtrodden in 18th century France but which is timeless in the manner in which hunger is portrayed. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.[1] Dickens’ makes masterful use of language “grave voices” and “ploughed into every furrow of age ...coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger.” The word sigh is defined as: to take in and let out a long, deep, audible breath, esp. in expressing sorrow, relief, fatigue, longing, etc. With all that “sigh” implies, we can feel the fatigue, the longing and the effort of expression conveyed by utilizing that verb to pitch the idea of Hunger. Having all experienced at least some level of hunger, we can quickly envision, in fact feel the effort it would take to even speak after extended periods of going without. Of Time: Time is marked in the passage by the repetition of the word Hunger at the beginning of phrases and sentences. Hunger keeps a steady beat, marching on relentlessly. The repetition serves to heighten the sense of hunger as it tightens its grasp over a period of time, becoming ever present. Of Space: Hunger. The initial hunger, the ravenous hunger, the continuous hunger, the unforgiving hunger. From faintness wrought from missing a meal or two to weight loss due to the continuous lack of provisions, hunger consumes. Dickens descriptions of “small loaf of scanty bread” and “reluctant drops of oil” present how precious each meagre store of food is when hunger is what you know and experience daily. Your stomach growls and rumbles. Your head aches. You feel faint. You feel tired and weak. Moving and even speaking becomes an effort. Hunger occupies the body. Hunger occupies physical space; “It was prevalent everywhere.” There was hunger in the houses, around the clothesline, on the filthy street and at the butcher’s and baker’s premises. It follows you wherever you are, being uppermost in your mind, gnawing at you no matter your surroundings. It knows no boundaries and will not be confined by fences nor borders. Hunger occupies the mind. Of Relationships: Hunger colours relationships. The best and the worst virtues of humanity come forth. A parent goes without so that his child may be fed yet neighbours fight off neighbours for food. Strife and stress within families rise as does the continuous worry over where the next meal is coming from. Otherwise good natured people become cantankerous as they are worn down. Hunger occupies mind, body and soul. [1] Dickens, C. (1859). A Tale of Two Cities.

Show and Tell: It’s a Window on their Lives by Alan Shapiro

As a child in elementary school, I like most other students, remember occasions when I was invited to share a favourite item or anecdote with the class. More recently, as the adult teacher, my focus shifted to how best to manage this activity. Because I have experienced this activity from two very different perspectives, I was curious to read and review how the author approached the topic of such a commonplace experience. Shapiro takes what most would consider an ordinary, everyday childhood experience and examines the significance of the experience. Specifically, he considers what the experience of “show’n tell” is like for both the students and the teacher. He delves deeper and further questions “What can “show’n tell” tell us about the lifeworlds of children and their teachers?” He addresses directly the phenomenological nature of his inquiry stating the activity will be “viewed from a pre-theoretical vantage point … laying aside preconceived notions concerning” this activity.
Shapiro takes a fairly straightforward and effective approach in addressing the questions he poses. He uses numerous quotes from students to illuminate what the experience is like from their perspective. In doing so, he identifies common themes in what the students experience. For some, it is a self- conscious, embarrassing experience. Cheryl reports that “you want to leave because it is so crowded with a lot of people and they start laughing at you and you can’t figure (out) why they are laughing at you and you don’t like it very much.” Others express fear: “I get so frightened and I just want to go in back and sit down.” Still others express anger: “it just pisses me off when they laugh at me.” While Shapiro acknowledges that children experience a range of emotions when engaging in “show’n tell”, what I like about this section is the way in which he recognizes the enormity of the decision students make to come forward. The student “places his self-outside-the- crowd” and to stand “up there”. There is a “danger” in making the shift from subjective to objective. “The group –we that was seconds ago a security and refuge, has become potentially threatening “them”.” In supporting and developing this idea with a quotation from Merleau-Ponty(1956) he further demonstrates the risk the students are taking when they choose to go public. Students are “caught by a gaze which freezes me in my tracks, reduces me to the condition of an object, steals my world from me, and takes away my freedom along with my subject position.”
In continuing his exploration of the show’n tell experience, Shapiro shifts to using anecdotes to demonstrate the experience from the teachers’ perspective. Teachers felt uncomfortable with the matter-of-fact way students shared quite personal details about their lives away from school. Listening to a recount of how daddy was taken away to jail at “show’n’tell “ time for example can be somewhat disconcerting. My connection to the discomfort felt by some of the teachers when listening to the personal accounts of particular students was immediate. When students report out incidents that involve family members in compromised situations, it can be awkward and we as teachers, don’t’ really know how to deal with it. And yet it is a forum for students’ real life problems and issues to be expressed. Shapiro makes an important point about how intertwined the social, emotional and intellectual development of a student is with teachers’ own emotional engagement with the student. In forming a relationship with students, the teacher then provides the environment in which those students can express themselves and experience the tension necessary for social emotional growth.

In juxtaposition to the feelings of embarrassment and fear, students also expressed how much they enjoyed “show’n’tell”. Students felt important and heard. “Oh, I like it because I like to tell about me and what I do, and what I have and what my cousins do.” We need show'n tell because if I had something to tell about me and what happens to me I couldn't tell it because there would be no time anyplace. (Linnea, Grade Three). For a moment in time, the spotlight is on the child and her story and the group is concerned only with what that person has to share.
The piece I find somewhat unusual about the article is in the fact that many of the students quoted were from Grade Six. In my experience, “show’n’tell” has generally been more of primary activity than an intermediate one. I found the grades one and three quotes to be more authentic.
The article acknowledges the feelings and experiences of participating in “show’n’tell” (for both students and teachers) that may have been unspoken in the past. Shapiro sums up his article insightfully with “Encountered in this manner, they may discover the possibility of being with others and at the same time being with themselves.” Students can learn to be put themselves out there and still be okay within themselves. As teachers we can provide the opportunities to develop the skills to do so.

Test Pilot

Hello everyone:

I am getting back up to speed and just experimenting with the environment. I see many of you have either posted an review or have responded to one. Blogspot does make it as easy as 1,2,3 to get started! For now I will lurk, until I have some content to add. Susan