Skool Daze

Sometimes I like to make my students smile or chuckle by telling them that I hated school and I especially hated learning English grammar.  And there I stand before them, teaching English grammar.

I always liked reading in school and had a good vocabulary, but diagramming sentences was a torture invented in hell as far as I was concerned.  However, I actually kind of enjoy English grammar now. (I hear my 14-year-old self wail, "The old man's joined the Dark Side!") 

I know in America the kids have been back to school for a few weeks now.  In Poland the school year begins on September 1st (September 2nd this year since the first falls on a Sunday).  I've always taught at private language schools here and those schools typically begin the school year in late September.

In total I've taught English as a foreign language in Poland seven and a half years.  There have been many more good days than bad in those years and witnessing students' success with learning the language is a pleasure that will never grow old.

My first year teaching was the 1997-98 academic year in Łódź.  Since it was my first year, I have many vivid memories of that time, such as obsessing over lesson planning until midnight the first month of that year, or dreaming about lessons going wrong.  Those dreams continued for years. 

But some of my happiest memories are of my class of 11 to 12-year-old intermediate students.

There were 3 boys and 3 girls.  Starting with the boys, there was Bogumił (pronounced bo-GOO-meeu), by far the strongest student in that class.  He was tall with light hair.  His father was pretty old - when I first met him I thought he was Bogumił's grandpa.  He was a very demanding man and expected only top grades from his son. Then there was Maciek (MA-check), short and slim and cheerfully mischievous.  Next was Oskar, short and a little chubby.  Oskar usually threw himself completely into whatever role playing activities we did.  Both Maciek and Oskar had dark brown hair.  The students sat in a semi-circle facing me and the boys always sat on my right.

Next, the girls on my left.  First from the center was Justyna (yoo-STIN-ah), a very strong student, interested in literature and drama.  She had brown hair, shoulder-length like the other two girls.  Then there was Magda, with light brown hair and very extrovert.  She loved to doodle pictures of her beloved cat and loved even more to talk about it.  Teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, of course, but I'll admit Magda was my favorite.  And at the end of the row was Marta, quiet and well-behaved with blonde hair.

As to be expected from kids their age, they could be awfully squirrely sometimes.  I recall one lesson when they just wouldn't, or couldn't, stay focused.  They weren't listening to my instructions and were just generally being little pains.  I finally had enough, gave them a good chewing out and asked them to sit quietly for the final 15 minutes of the lesson.  They were abashed and I didn't hear a peep from them while I sat at my desk filling in the register.  At the end of the lesson I gave them their homework assignment and dismissed them.  As I cleaned the white board I saw them from the corner of my eye putting on their coats to go home.  Justyna and Magda were the final two to leave and they hesitated at the door, whispering to each other.  Then they said, "Sir, we're very sorry."  That really touched my heart.  I smiled, said it was OK and told them to have a good weekend.

Once I gave that class a homework assignment to interview a relative and write a short biography of them.  I was amazed by what they turned in.  I think they'd all interviewed a grandparent and the biographies they wrote were extremely interesting.  A couple of their grandparents were sent to Germany to work as forced laborers during World War II and they told their grandkids of the hardships and fear they experienced.  I photocopied and kept those papers at that time, but I think I may have lost them in the years since.

I also remember the final lesson before Christmas break.  We always do a Christmas-themed lesson right before the break and I remember Justyna and Magda standing up and singing a few Polish Christmas carols in clear, beautiful voices.

My ultimate memory of that class that year concerns Marta.  Marta was the weakest student in the class.  Her grade for the 1st semester was really low and so I decided to do what I could to help her do better the 2nd semester.  I tried to discretely assist her more in lessons by making sure she understood what I was presenting or encouraging her more.  I asked her during breaks if she had any questions about anything and offered her extra material to take home.  She was rather shy about all this at first but eventually she started asking me to give her more material to do at home. 

I noticed that her grades on quizzes and tests were getting better and better.  I could see her confidence growing.  At the end of the year they had a final exam.  I had my fingers crossed.

When I marked their exams I was astounded.  Marta had the same grade as Bogumił!  She didn't cheat off him because I had spaced all their desks far apart and anyway the two of them didn't have the same questions wrong.  Marta had done it!

On the very last day of the year we had meetings with the kids and their parents where we discussed the students' work, talked about the next year and gave them each certificates.  The school was located on the top floor of a 3-storey building.  I was standing at the top of the stairs when Marta and her grandmother came walking up.  Marta's shoulders were scrunched up with tension and she had an apprehensive look in her eyes.  I said, "Marta!  You passed!"  Immediately her shoulders relaxed and a big smile lit up her face.

During the meeting with her and her grandmother I had the pleasure of telling Marta that she and Bogumił had the best grades on the final exam.  Her bottom jaw about hit the desk.  Then I got to brag on Marta to her grandmother about all the progress she had made in the 2nd semester.  Both Marta and her grandmother walked out of that classroom with their faces beaming.

Those kids would be in their late 20's now, finished with university and probably with families of their own.  I wish them all happiness.  I'll never forget Marta and her classmates as long as I live.

St John Baptist de la Salle

patron saint of teachers

Armchair Traveling

I feel bad for people who don't like to read.  Seriously, I really do!  In what other way can you enter into another person's (the writer's) experiences or ideas, travel to different times and places in the world, or even in other galaxies?

Robin Hood by Joan Leininger -

vist her blog wwwjleininger.blogspot.com

Summer is the time when people get away for vacation and travel.  I and my wife and 2 kids were fortunate to be able to spend a long weekend in the mountains of southern Poland in July.  The weather was fantastic and anyway I love mountains in all weathers.

I've also spent many hours this summer traveling through reading.  It was while I was reading Marco Polo's The Travels that I realized that the books I had read this summer, and the books on my 'to read' list, were nearly all travel related.  This was completely unintended.

I started my summer with Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, which I wrote about on my July 6th post.  That was followed by Marco Polo and next up was Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

Yes, some of those are works of fiction.  I include The Little Prince since much of that book is the Little Prince recounting his journey from asteroid to asteroid through the universe, meeting many characters, until he arrives on earth, where he travels further and meets more creatures: human, animal and vegetable.

I think that most any boy who's ever read Robinson Crusoe feels an adventurous desire to be cast up on a deserted isle with all the helpful tools that Crusoe rescued from his ship.  It's ironic that the character of Crusoe feels hateful toward his island prison for much of his confinement there.  The unromantic reality of being alone on a distant island is probably something closer to what Tom Hanks' character experienced in the movie Castaway. 

As I write this, I'm finishing up Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.  This 80 page book is a small gem.  Stevenson had an eye for detail and human character - like any worthy writer, of course - and his tale of his willful little donkey, the peculiar French peasants he encounters and the dramatic scenery of the rugged, hilly Cevennes region of south-central France is a delightful page turner.  The book has been in constant print since it was published in 1907.

Next on my list to read is Henry James' Italian Hours, recounting his various visits to Italy, which has also remained popular since it's publication in 1909.

I want to recommend again the fantastic website bookdepository.co.uk with their free books catalogue by Dodo Press.  The works of any author are free to the public 70 years after he or she kicks the bucket.  Dodo Press offers over 11,000 free books (and you can buy the paperback versions from them if you like).  Thanks to Dodo Press and the Book Depository, I've been able to download and read some of the books mentioned in this post.

I've read other non-travel related books this summer, too.  I particularly enjoyed Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, which I first read back in college.  The character Bathsheba attracts the attentions and love (to a greater or lesser degree) of three men.  She must suffer from her own missteps to mature and eventually give her heart to the one man most deserving of her love.  What separates a Hardy love story from low-brow romance novels is the living depth of his characters and his poet's description of places and events.  (Hardy was an architect before he turned to writing and also wrote first rate poetry.)  His rendering of the scene where Gabriel and Bathsheba frantically work to save stacks of wheat from ruin by rain in a lightning storm is vivid.  That's just one example from dozens I could cite.

Anyone who's read Hardy knows his novels are about as opposite to travel books as you can get!  They all take place in one little corner of England, but that little corner of the world contains a large universe of characters and lives.

Come to think of it, the same can be said for any avid reader's armchair.

The House was Quiet and the World was Calm
by Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm.  The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

God loves his Mama

A joke attributed to Saint Padre Pio:

Up in heaven, Jesus gave a very special job to Peter to guard the beautiful pearly gates.  When Jesus spoke to Saint Peter, he very carefully told him how important it is to make sure that the wrong people did not get past those gates.  He said to him, "Now Peter, I am entrusting this job to you so please do not fail me.  It is very important that you do not let those who overly sinned into heaven.  Remember that I am counting on you."  Peter took his job very seriously and told Our Savior that he would guard the gates of heaven with all his love for Him.

Time passed by and Jesus started to see strange things around heaven.  He would notice a soul walking here and there that he knew should NOT be there, at least not yet.  So he approached Peter.

He said, "Now Peter, I trusted you with this special job. What is this that I am seeing all over heaven?!"

Peter bowed his head and said, "Please Lord, you know that I would never disobey you and I have certainly listened to everything you have instructed me to do."

Jesus asked, "Then how could this be happening?"

Peter replied, "My Lord, I have been very careful in guarding the gates of heaven but while I am keeping such a close watch on the gates, your Mother has been opening the windows!"

The joke is not theologically correct, of course - Mary would not sneak around behind Jesus' back and anyway Jesus, being God, would know what's going on.  But the joke points to an important truth about Mary.

Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This posting comes 2 days after the feast, but nobody thinks the event happened on this specific date and no one seems to know why this date was chosen.  The event is relevant every day and for eternity. 

Eileen Clare Grant puts it nicely in August's Magnificat:

The Dwelling Place of the Word

The Catholic Church teaches that "the most Blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven, where she already shares in the glory of her Son's Resurrection, anticipating the resurrection of all members of his Body."  This doctrine - the Assumption - was defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950 on the grounds that it had always been an intrinsic part of Catholic belief.  But why?

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the humble girl who trusted God and said "Yes" to bearing the Redeemer of the world.  Surely, the Father who had been generous enough to send his only Son to save us would reward Mary at the end of her earthly life.  He would not let her rot in the tomb, but take her to heaven to be with her Son for eternity.

"And who, I ask, could believe that the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin?  My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought him into the world, had nourished and carried him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms" (Saint Robert Bellarmine).

"What son would not bring his mother back to life, and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could?" (Saint Francis de Sales). 

Such declarations bear witness to the love and veneration with which Mary has been regarded ever since her Son gave her to his newborn Church as Mother.

Eileen Clare Grant is a Benedictine oblate and RCIA catechist at St Mary's Cathedral, Aberdeen, Scotland

August 15th is a national holiday in Poland.  When I first came to Poland to do my 4-week teacher certification course in August 1997, in Cracow, this day fell on a Friday.  We had the day off from our course and so had a long weekend.

I had become friends with a couple of the other trainees on the course - Andrew from Vancouver, Canada and his girlfriend Becky, who was born in England but moved as a child to Vancouver.  For the holiday on the 15th another American on the course, Tom, suggested going swimming in a lake near Cracow.  He told us the lake was an old flooded quarry and that the quarry was where Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II) was forced to work for a chemical company during the Second World War.

Andrew, Becky and I prepared a picnic lunch: sandwiches made of fresh rolls, fresh ham, cheese, cucumbers, lettuce (so delicious!), some fruit and bottles of beer. (The Poles aren't so puritan about public drinking and the vast majority of people behave themselves.)  Then we caught up with Tom later at the lake.

After lugging around so much heavy baggage while moving from base to base during my Air Force days, I had only packed one medium suitcase to take to Poland.  Luckily I had included a pair of swimming trunks in that suitcase.  The day at the lake was fantastic.  The weather was sunny and warm, the water lovely and cool, the food and beer very satisfying and the time spent with my friends I'll never forget.

Andrew and Becky were cooking enthusiasts and they taught me to make tomato spaghetti sauce and creamy alfredo sauce during our time in Cracow.  After we finished our course they both got jobs at a school in Wrocław and I got a job in Łódź.  They came up once to visit me and I went there twice - my second visit to them over Christmas and New Year's included a week in Cologne, Germany. 

Andrew and Becky split up the following February, Becky going back to Canada.  Andrew and a friend of his stayed with me for a few days the following summer when I was teaching summer school in Cracow.  Then Andrew went back to Canada and we lost touch. 

It was a brief and admittedly not a deep friendship, but they both did touch my life and I'll never forget them.  I thank God for them and I ask Him to guide and protect them wherever they are now.

Cracow (Kraków) - St Mary's Church, main square

Gold

The farmers around here have been bringing in the grain and hay lately.  The weather's been hot and dry and it looks like they've had a good harvest so far this year.  The stubble of the harvested grain looks golden, especially when the sunlight hits it at a certain angle.  I can see where the idea of Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold came from. 

I took some photos from the fields next to our village, though my camera doesn't really capture the gold color so well.



 

 

 

 The gold color of the straw also makes me think of Eastern Orthodox icons, which I love very much.  I've read that the Orthodox monks who paint these icons use egg yolk to get that golden color used as background.  The Russian film The Island depicts a monk iconographer keeping a hen in his studio in order to have a supply of egg yolks.

 

The gold background in icons represents paradise, which is interesting considering some passages of scripture.  Per Revelations 21:27, nothing impure will enter heaven, while 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 speaks of each person's spiritual work being tried by fire. Whatever is like gold or silver will be refined, but the wood and straw will be burned up.  We have here indications of Purgatory.

 



 

The Sweetness of Mercy

Anthony Esolen wrote a wonderful essay printed in the August Magnificat.  It's called "The Sweetness of Mercy" and deals with how our Lady, the Virgin Mary, intercedes for us in heaven.  I want to reprint just a small part of it here.

He cites the Memorare prayer: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thy intercession, was left unaided.  Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions; but in thy clemency hear and answer me.

He follows that with a section titled, 'One Little Tear'.

'The prayer reminds me of a powerful moment in Dante's Purgatory (Canto 5), when the poet meets a young man named Bonconte, a player in the violent politics of his time, who died on the battlefield, and whose own kin do not trouble to pray for him, because they assume that his many heavy sins have weighed him down to hell.  But he is among the saved!  How can this be?  Bonconte says that he fled the field with an arrow in his throat, spattering the plains with his blood.  But in the moment before he died, he uttered a prayer - or rather a single name, "Maria," and folded his arms cross-wise upon his chest.

'Mary - and that sufficed.  Bonconte seizes the poet's attention.  "It's the truth!" he cries.  "Tell it to all alive!"  At the moment of his death, a devil came to drag him to perdition, but an angel took him instead, per una lagrimetta, the devil protests, cheated of his prey, "for one little tear!"  One little tear; one heartfelt appeal to the Mother of us all.

'Surely God has provided us with a Mother; recall what Jesus said to the Beloved Disciple just before his death upon the cross.  In that hour before the agonizing cry, and the final submission, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," he commended Mary to the earthly care of John, and commended John and all Christians everywhere to the heavenly care of Mary.'

Anthony Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College and has translated Dante's Divine Comedy into English.

Ariel Castro, the man who kidnapped, raped, beat and imprisoned those 3 women for a decade in Cleveland; the man who caused the death of an unborn baby by savagely beating the woman he impregnated, was sentenced to life without parole plus a thousand years last week.  One of his victims, Michelle Knight, told him in court on the day of his sentencing, "You will face hell for an eternity."

Her anger is completely understandable.  Castro treated her as a beast, keeping her as a sex slave for 11 years.  She lost those precious years of her life and I imagine the experience will haunt her to the end of her days.

But let us remember that she is not God and not one of us deserves to enter heaven.  Nothing impure will ever enter heaven (Revelations 21:27).  My ugly "little" sins bar me from heaven as much as Ariel Castro's.  Yes, God wills that all be saved.  Jesus died on the cross, spent 3 days in the underworld and rose from the grave so that we could be free of death (sin).  Mary and all the saints in heaven intercede on our behalf.  Many monks and nuns in monasteries and convents around the world pray for the salvation of souls.  What's required from us and Ariel Castro is genuine sorrow and repentance; even one little tear.

Virgin Mary, by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato



Our Life in Poland - Year 2

Well, August 2nd marked our second year here in Poland.  What can I say about it?  It's been bitter-sweet. 

I think for our kids it's better for them here, living in a small village and going to a small school.  Had we stayed in suburban Texas they'd be swallowed up in some institutional school system where parents have restricted access to what happens in the school.  The alternative would have been to move to a small town in the U.S. where there aren't jobs or send the kids to our parish's private school which we couldn't afford.

(The unaffordability of Catholic schools for most parents is a burr in my britches - but that's for another time.)

For me, living in Poland is rather like self-imposed exile.  I'm an alien here and I'll never be fully part of the community.  My Polish has improved but there's still a great chasm between me and other people due to my deficiencies in the language.

 

I like teaching English far more than working in transportation logistics.  That was truly 'hamster-on-a-wheel' type of work and I don't miss it.  However, I don't get a regular and consistent paycheck here like with my job in Texas and so there's more financial stress here.

As I wrote about in my previous post, my mind here is freer and more open to work on my writing.  Yet, I have limited access to books in English beyond what I already own because of financial restraints.

I could go on, but I think I've given enough examples of the painful contradictions, the pluses and minuses, of living here.  Pray and ask God to give us strength and wisdom.

Mary, Undoer of Knots

Pope Francis has been devoted to Saint Mary under her appellation of "Undoer of Knots" since seeing a painting of that name by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner while studying in Bavaria, Germany in the 1980s.  The painting shows Mary surrounded by angels, with the Holy Spirit hovering over her head, as she rests her foot on the head of 'knotted' snake.  The idea of Mary untying knots comes from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: "The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary.  For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith."

May our Lady assist me in untying the knots of contradictory desires in my own heart.

Why Catholic?

When I converted to the Catholic faith 7 years ago, the reaction of my family and friends was mixed.  I was raised in a Protestantism that was very anti-Catholic.  There was some hostility from a few people (who I eventually lost contact with more or less as a result of my conversion), some concern from a few others, some genuine interest from one or two and silence (indifference?) from the rest.

I've been tempted to write an explanation for my conversion (an 'apology' in the old sense of the word, which means 'explanation' and not 'saying sorry').  But as the Catholic convert John Henry Newman once said, "An explanation of one's conversion to the Faith is not something that can be fully given between the soup and the entrée."  (I'm quoting from memory as I can't find the exact quote to save my life.  Really, Google?)

In other words, it can't be fully explained in 50 words or less.  For me the road to the Church started very early in my life with many signposts pointing the way that I didn't recognize at the time.  I saw this text recently that goes a long way in giving my own answer:

Q:  What kind of Catholic are you . . . a dogmatic Catholic or an open-minded Catholic?
A:  I don't know what that means.  Do you mean do I believe the dogma that the Catholic Church proposes for belief?
Q:  Yes.
A:  Yes.
Q:  How is such a belief possible in this day and age?
A:  What else is there?
Q:  What do you mean, what else is there?  There is humanism, atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Islam, Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.
A:  That's what I mean . . .
Q:  I don't understand.  Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?
A:  Yes.
Q:  Why?
A:  It's not good enough.
Q:  Why not?
A:  This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer "Scientific humanism".  That won't do.  A poor show.  Life is a mystery, love is a delight.  Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God.  In fact I demand it.  I refuse to settle for anything less.  I don't see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let him go until God identified himself and blessed him.
Q:  Grabbed aholt?
A:  A Louisiana expression . . .
Q:  How do you account for your belief?
A:  I can only account for it as a gift from God.
Q:  Why would God make you such a gift when there are others who seem more deserving, that is, serve their fellow man?
A:  I don't know.  God does strange things . . .
Q:  But shouldn't one's faith bear some relation to the truth, facts?
A:  Yes.  That's what attracted me, Christianity's rather insolent claim to be true, with the implication that other religions are more or less false.
Q:  You believe that?
A:  Of course.

Walker Percy, excerpt from Conversations with Walker Percy, printed in the July edition of Magnificat

Walker Percy

If I were to add to what Walker Percy says above it's that the Church is Who she says she is - the Body and the Bride of Christ Jesus.  (The Wedding Feast of the Lamb is happening in the eternal now and every mass is a participation in it.)  No merely human institution could last 2,000 years.  Not with such people like me in it!

 Sister says, "To Err Is Human, To Laugh Is Divine!"

Here's Hilaire Belloc:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!



Benedicamus Domino - Latin for 'Let us bless the Lord'