I'd never heard of the poet/educator, Linda Christensen, until I began my initial license class, in curriculum development, with Dr. Sara Young. (A new, fast-track professional licensing program, for those of us whose careers had taken LIFE as the road to travel (instead of directly following the path of academia and credentials),begun at Worcester State University, with the blessings of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.) I find myself headed to become what I had so desperately avoided: a High School English Teacher. However, having known, up front and personal, on all coasts and directions, multitudinous English teachers over the years, my perspective on what and who an English Teacher might be, has vastly enlarged. (Or maybe I've just grown-up?) In any case, my karmic path keeps pulling me back to teaching jobs, so, I've decided to "pay attention" and do this thing for real. Legit. On track and with the blessings of the Commonwealth.
Since I am back here, with aging parents and blood family, and still looking for gainful employment, it makes sense to seek the licenses that will help meet best ends. Teaching IS something I've always done and loved. It is the idea of lesson plans and dry curriculum and state- mandated (now Federal, too) standards and testing that curdles my innards. Always has. Always will. But, hey, every job has a down-side. (Even this writer's business...)
So, I've begun the journey at Worcester State University. I am being cheered on by old friends, one of whom is taking these classes right beside me. (And if Helayne hadn't introduced me to this program, or didn't have a car, I would probably still be straddling both coasts, about to slip into the abyss of "no jobs"...) But Helayne, who has her MA in history from WSU, found this new program. She set up an interview with the assistant Dean to talk sense to me. (Helayne also has a dependable car.) It helps, immensely, that we've been close buddies since Gardner High, so many decades back...(Fate makes us classmates, once again.)
When Dr. Sara Young gave us the first assignment of checking out the "I'm From" poems by Linda Christensen, who developed the poetry and its recipe to give kids in her own classrooms a route to painless introductions, I was game. Hey, in all those years at UCI Farm School, I'd taught poetry and prose to two generations of kids. I know the power of the written word--especially to tongue-tied adolescents. (Same in L.A., via GLASS, Inc. high risk foster teens.) All those group therapy writing classes demonstrated this fact.
So, now it is my turn.
(In honor of the lesson plan and work of Linda Christensen and her poetry, I toss my hat into the ring:)
I'M FROM
(a poem in homage to Linda Christensen, via the promptings of Dr. Sara Young )
Fairy-folk dancing around the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Tucked in tight mid the hairy legged Vikings
As they headed out to pillage
Across cold north seas.
I'm from tree-hugging Druids and Saints who
Burned with them; from red-skinned
Warriors and blonde tressed
Hunters; blue-eyed healers who could not see.
I'm from wild-mouthed Irish, both Protestant and
Catholic; from ice-minded Norsemen; all
Fighters and French; from uncounted Natives;
The wind still blows us.
I'm from place-cards invisible; maps yet unwritten;
Gene pools and dark ponds and
Star trails in Heaven; I am Hope; I am Joy; I am
Salted ,and Alive with this Love.
Karen Marie Christa Minns
