Showing posts with label Place Conscious Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Place Conscious Teaching. Show all posts
1/17/12
My students are blogging
I've carried my love of blogging into the classroom. For the past two years my 12th grade students have kept blogs, but this year I've expanded my horizons and have decided to create a blog for a project my English 9 students are working on. We're just getting into our Social Action unit--one of my favorites--but this year I've expanded it just a bit to include this blogging component. The blog is still a work in progress; students are currently working on creating a description for the About Us page (that should be posted by Friday). I'm also happy to report that The Keith County Chamber of Commerce and Grow Keith County have agreed to link our class blog to their websites, so we can share our work (and the good work people of Keith County are doing) with more people! Anyway, check out the blog if you're interested in seeing what students are doing...
1/14/12
The Changing Face of Small Towns
For the majority of my life, I grew up in a small town in southeastern Nebraska. Our town had about 5,000 people; it's home to a small, liberal arts college, and before Wal-Mart set up shop, it had a thriving downtown typical of most small towns: a video store, restaurants, sports bars, a pharmacy, a library, a few clothing stores, a consignment shop, a hardware store, etc. It had all we needed. My family lived a block from the city pool where my brother and I spent our summers. We were close enough to walk to our small Catholic elementary school, but far enough for us to complain that we had to walk so far. Our neighborhood was peppered with kids our age, and evening baseball games took place in our backyard and were played often times into the glow of lightening bugs. When our neighbor's house started on fire in the dead of winter, they came to stay with us; it's what neighbors did for one another in that small town. My brother and I couldn't get away with much in that small town. Once I found myself sitting on the curb at recess, the typical punishment for telling a classmate his mom was so fat that we could use her bra for a slingshot. My teacher didn't bother to call home to report the incident; she probably figured my parents would find out somehow. And they did...I think a family friend drove by and saw me, dejected, alone, and banished to the curb. Naturally, my parents asked why I, a sociable child, was sitting on the curb during recess. I don't remember if I told them the truth right away; it's likely I didn't since I was a creative child who regularly came up with my own stories. But somehow they found out about my "yo momma" joke. That's what happens in small towns...word travels fast. And though this can be a thorn in the sides of some, I can see how it would be helpful in child rearing.
Some of my best childhood memories are from that small, southeastern Nebraska town. Now I find myself back in a small town similar to the one I grew up in, but on the opposite end of the state. And maybe it's because I'm older and have the ability to be more critical, but I've noticed that small towns are changing. The town I grew up in has experienced major changes in the last fifteen years: many downtown businesses have either closed or have been converted to Mexican grocery markets due in part to the changing industry and the introduction of a Wal-Mart and the presence of gangs has increased. At one point I looked at applying for a teaching job in that community and was interested in moving back but was discouraged by several colleagues and adults due to the "problems" in the town and the local high school. Similarly, when my husband and I moved to a small town four years ago, I had these romantic visions of teaching kids who valued hard work and whose parents valued education. And while I have been blessed to have many hard-working students whose families really do care about education, it seems that each year the number of these students decline along with our enrollment. In my small town teaching job, I deal with big city issues: drug use, poverty, homelessness, abusive parents, early run-ins with the law...I could go on and on. My job as a small town teacher is not at all what I expected. It's undeniable that small towns are changing.
Many of these once-valued small towns across the Heartland are shrinking at a rapid pace and are experiencing a "hollowing out"--a brain drain due to what seems like a mass exodus of youth (Carr and Kefalas). Urban dwellers might ask, so why does it matter if small towns die off? Not only can small towns provide a way of life and a quality of life that simply can't be replicated in metropolitan areas, this dilemma matters because "[...] the Heartland is the place where our food comes from, it is the place that helps elect our presidents [...] and it is the place that sends more than its fair share of young men and women to fight for this country. The future of the many towns that give the Heartland its shape and its sinews is of vital importance, and we believe that ignoring their hollowing out will be detrimental in the short and long terms" (Carr and Kefalas ix). Without small towns, the face of America would change greatly and not for the better.
Some of my best childhood memories are from that small, southeastern Nebraska town. Now I find myself back in a small town similar to the one I grew up in, but on the opposite end of the state. And maybe it's because I'm older and have the ability to be more critical, but I've noticed that small towns are changing. The town I grew up in has experienced major changes in the last fifteen years: many downtown businesses have either closed or have been converted to Mexican grocery markets due in part to the changing industry and the introduction of a Wal-Mart and the presence of gangs has increased. At one point I looked at applying for a teaching job in that community and was interested in moving back but was discouraged by several colleagues and adults due to the "problems" in the town and the local high school. Similarly, when my husband and I moved to a small town four years ago, I had these romantic visions of teaching kids who valued hard work and whose parents valued education. And while I have been blessed to have many hard-working students whose families really do care about education, it seems that each year the number of these students decline along with our enrollment. In my small town teaching job, I deal with big city issues: drug use, poverty, homelessness, abusive parents, early run-ins with the law...I could go on and on. My job as a small town teacher is not at all what I expected. It's undeniable that small towns are changing.
Many of these once-valued small towns across the Heartland are shrinking at a rapid pace and are experiencing a "hollowing out"--a brain drain due to what seems like a mass exodus of youth (Carr and Kefalas). Urban dwellers might ask, so why does it matter if small towns die off? Not only can small towns provide a way of life and a quality of life that simply can't be replicated in metropolitan areas, this dilemma matters because "[...] the Heartland is the place where our food comes from, it is the place that helps elect our presidents [...] and it is the place that sends more than its fair share of young men and women to fight for this country. The future of the many towns that give the Heartland its shape and its sinews is of vital importance, and we believe that ignoring their hollowing out will be detrimental in the short and long terms" (Carr and Kefalas ix). Without small towns, the face of America would change greatly and not for the better.
My Attempt to Plug The Rural Brain Drain
As mentioned in a previous post, for a little over a week I've been reading Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas's book Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brian Drain and What It Means for America, hoping to find inspiration for my thesis. And guess what? I found it today...at about 1:00 this afternoon when I finished the book.
My guiding question for my thesis has emerged as: How does social action develop deeper connections to community for rural students? I'm aware that to most, this is dreary material. As I've grown to kind of like living and teaching in a small town (shhh....don't tell!) though, this question has become increasingly important to me. Until this year, I've basically treated activism and place consciousness as two separate units within my curriculum. Last year I listened to kids (particularly my seniors) lament about our town wishing they lived somewhere more exciting making declarations that they will probably never come back to Ogallala because A) it's boring and B) there are no jobs here for them. While I believe these claims are due in part to the natural longing to experience the world, when I prodded them about their civic involvement, I discovered that these experiences were few and far between. My seniors really didn't have a clue as to how decisions about the community were made and lacked involvement with the community. Many of these students were bright and involved heavily in extracurricular activities and most would likely fit into Carr and Kefalas's category of Achievers (students bound for college, destined to move away and never come back). So I began to wonder: would more civic involvement help students consider the possibilities of eventually returning to our small town?
Over the past four years, enrollment at our high school has dropped, and we've gone from a class B school to a class C school. My music teacher husband and I have sat on edge as discussions of RIFfing swirled around the district resulting in just a few (luckily) positions eliminated. Each year when contracts are issued I grow a little nervous thinking about the possibility that either me or my husband could be issued the dreaded pink slip due to declining numbers in enrollment. I haven't done any deep census studies, but from listening to locals chat, I hear worry and concern in voices as they talk about how Ogallala once was compared to its state now. And as I listen to my students' state that Ogallala is fine to grow up in, but not fine to move back to--my concern for the town's well-being is growing.
So, this year I've decided to merge activism and place consciousness in my curriculum; I guess it's my own little attempt to plug the rural brain drain....
In my next post I'll include some of Carr and Kefalas's findings and ideas that support what I'm doing in my own classroom...bear with me as I work through research and try to navigate my way back on track for my thesis. I promise to try and post something this weekend that is non-thesis related :)
My guiding question for my thesis has emerged as: How does social action develop deeper connections to community for rural students? I'm aware that to most, this is dreary material. As I've grown to kind of like living and teaching in a small town (shhh....don't tell!) though, this question has become increasingly important to me. Until this year, I've basically treated activism and place consciousness as two separate units within my curriculum. Last year I listened to kids (particularly my seniors) lament about our town wishing they lived somewhere more exciting making declarations that they will probably never come back to Ogallala because A) it's boring and B) there are no jobs here for them. While I believe these claims are due in part to the natural longing to experience the world, when I prodded them about their civic involvement, I discovered that these experiences were few and far between. My seniors really didn't have a clue as to how decisions about the community were made and lacked involvement with the community. Many of these students were bright and involved heavily in extracurricular activities and most would likely fit into Carr and Kefalas's category of Achievers (students bound for college, destined to move away and never come back). So I began to wonder: would more civic involvement help students consider the possibilities of eventually returning to our small town?
Over the past four years, enrollment at our high school has dropped, and we've gone from a class B school to a class C school. My music teacher husband and I have sat on edge as discussions of RIFfing swirled around the district resulting in just a few (luckily) positions eliminated. Each year when contracts are issued I grow a little nervous thinking about the possibility that either me or my husband could be issued the dreaded pink slip due to declining numbers in enrollment. I haven't done any deep census studies, but from listening to locals chat, I hear worry and concern in voices as they talk about how Ogallala once was compared to its state now. And as I listen to my students' state that Ogallala is fine to grow up in, but not fine to move back to--my concern for the town's well-being is growing.
So, this year I've decided to merge activism and place consciousness in my curriculum; I guess it's my own little attempt to plug the rural brain drain....
In my next post I'll include some of Carr and Kefalas's findings and ideas that support what I'm doing in my own classroom...bear with me as I work through research and try to navigate my way back on track for my thesis. I promise to try and post something this weekend that is non-thesis related :)
1/3/12
The Dilemmas Facing Rural Teachers and Students: Retaining Ambitious Teachers
The next few posts will likely be scattered and maybe even a bit fragmented. I'm working through an intense amount of writer's block on my thesis and am following a reader's advice about continuing the search (thanks for the tips, Stu!). So I started another book last night and will be recording my responses as I read. Tonight's post is more introductory in nature; I'll delve into thoughts about the book in the next coming weeks.
I'm aware of the predicament in which rural schools often find themselves. In my neck of the woods--southwest Nebraska--it's hard to attract young, motivated, critical teachers and it's even harder to get them to stay. My career is a testament to this predicament. I was hired to teach in a small, consolidated district before I had even completed my student teaching experience simply because the district was faced with a retiring teacher and no applicants....other than me: an overly ambitious college student handing out resumes to any principals who'd take them. They really had no choice but to hire me. The district is solid, the kids (for the most part) are hard-working, and the administration is fairly supportive, but it only took me a a few months to realize I didn't have the stamina or experience to maintain the schedule handed to me by the district: 8 preps in an 8 period day is practically homicide for a novice teacher. A few years later I find myself teaching in a larger school twenty miles down the road---a class C school with a rapidly declining student population in a town where the majority seems to shrug its shoulders at problems the district faces. Either the massive work loads or the lack of community investment in its most precious commodity, education, push many young and ambitious teachers out (especially those with no roots in the region). Who can blame them? I'm interested in how we can retain these teachers because ultimately, the students are losing out the most. Research proves that students do not learn as much from a first-year teacher as they do from a more experienced teacher. It's not rocket science. From my experience, the first three years of teaching are pretty much trial and error and survival. So when jobs become "revolving door" positions, what are students gaining?
For the past three years I've been studying Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas's work dealing with The Rural Brain Drain phenomenon. Students in my English 12 class read, discuss, and write about their article, "The Rural Brain Drain," that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. These conversations with students have been fruitful and encouraging for me, causing me to invest more in examining the dilemmas rural students face. So looking for inspiration for my thesis, last night I picked up Carr and Kefalas's book Hollowing Out The Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America. Not only does the book scientifically examine this phenomenon, it also blends in rich profiles of rural people and the dilemmas they face. The writers' descriptions are vivid and prove that writing about research can result in a compelling read that is anything but dry. I'm really hoping this book will provide me with some direction in which to direct my thesis. However, I'm also looking forward to examining this brain drain more deeply and am hoping it will invigorate my teaching at a time when I'm feeling tired and overworked.
I'm aware of the predicament in which rural schools often find themselves. In my neck of the woods--southwest Nebraska--it's hard to attract young, motivated, critical teachers and it's even harder to get them to stay. My career is a testament to this predicament. I was hired to teach in a small, consolidated district before I had even completed my student teaching experience simply because the district was faced with a retiring teacher and no applicants....other than me: an overly ambitious college student handing out resumes to any principals who'd take them. They really had no choice but to hire me. The district is solid, the kids (for the most part) are hard-working, and the administration is fairly supportive, but it only took me a a few months to realize I didn't have the stamina or experience to maintain the schedule handed to me by the district: 8 preps in an 8 period day is practically homicide for a novice teacher. A few years later I find myself teaching in a larger school twenty miles down the road---a class C school with a rapidly declining student population in a town where the majority seems to shrug its shoulders at problems the district faces. Either the massive work loads or the lack of community investment in its most precious commodity, education, push many young and ambitious teachers out (especially those with no roots in the region). Who can blame them? I'm interested in how we can retain these teachers because ultimately, the students are losing out the most. Research proves that students do not learn as much from a first-year teacher as they do from a more experienced teacher. It's not rocket science. From my experience, the first three years of teaching are pretty much trial and error and survival. So when jobs become "revolving door" positions, what are students gaining?
For the past three years I've been studying Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas's work dealing with The Rural Brain Drain phenomenon. Students in my English 12 class read, discuss, and write about their article, "The Rural Brain Drain," that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. These conversations with students have been fruitful and encouraging for me, causing me to invest more in examining the dilemmas rural students face. So looking for inspiration for my thesis, last night I picked up Carr and Kefalas's book Hollowing Out The Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America. Not only does the book scientifically examine this phenomenon, it also blends in rich profiles of rural people and the dilemmas they face. The writers' descriptions are vivid and prove that writing about research can result in a compelling read that is anything but dry. I'm really hoping this book will provide me with some direction in which to direct my thesis. However, I'm also looking forward to examining this brain drain more deeply and am hoping it will invigorate my teaching at a time when I'm feeling tired and overworked.
11/20/11
Merging Place Consciousness with Social Action
Note: As promised, here's another post about my thesis :) This is a brief, scattered overview of the project my English 9 students will be engaging in after Christmas...another post will follow about my intentions/goals for the project.
This morning I watched an amazing Ted Talks video (see below) where Natalie Warne, a 20 year old, shares her journey of catching the activism bug at the age of 17 which caused her to devote the next few years of her life working as an intern for the organization Invisible Children. Natalie refers to the people she worked with along the way as " Anonymous Extraordinaries," people who work to make a difference without want of recognition for their actions. I've decided to start my unit with this video clip. After discussing the concept of activism, I'll allow students to brainstorm local people and agencies who are "Local Anonymous Extraordinaries." Students may struggle with this, especially if they or their families are not connected to the community. So, I'll have to come up with my own list as a way to spark discussion. Once we've generated a pretty good list, I'd like for students then to interview these people who are quietly, yet passionately making a difference right here in our own community and then create a journalistic style piece of writing featuring said activist. My plan is to model this off a few different projects. The first is the Foxfire Project, popular in the 60s and 70s in Appalachia in which students recorded stories told by their elders. The second is from Central City native, Wright Morris, who used photography and writing to capture the essence of local places. So in addition to writing, students will candidly photograph these people and/or their work. If all goes as planned, I'll set up a class blog for students to post their pictures and compositions so we have a giant collection of "Local Anonymous Extraordinaries." I'd like the blog to be linked to our school's webpage and the city's webpage as a way to promote the good work our citizens do.
After this portion of the project is completed, students will launch into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" and our study of the Civil Rights Movement in order to introduce them to Dr. King's four steps for non-violent direct action (which are awesome, practical steps to follow when trying to spark change). Then, my favorite part of the unit: students will choose a local issue to research and support. Students will be required to act on an issue that is important them. In the end, students will create a visual presentation that includes background information about their cause, an overview of what they did to help and photos to prove it, vocabulary they learned along the way, and they'll end with what they learned in this journey. These will be presented to community members during our Social Action Project Night that students organize.
Here's the Ted Talks video I referred to earlier:
11/18/11
Theis Update
Note: The next few posts will be devoted to my thesis. I'm in the process of "working out" the beginning part of the class project I'm using to write about in my thesis. I'll break the posts up so people aren't overwhelmed by the nerd wavelengths radiating from my writing :) I'm posting my thoughts here because I'd love feedback on how to make this project or my thesis more effective.
On Friday I met with my amazing thesis committee on campus at UNL. There are three faculty members helping me with this huge project, and they have been nothing but a healthy balance of encouraging and critical. I admit, I'm still nervous about this undertaking. I don't feel like I have anything to add to the intellectual conversation surrounding place consciousness and social action as a way for students to invest in their communities and hopefully appreciate the place they come from a little more. I feel comfortable researching and utilizing these concepts in my teaching, but writing about it in a coherent way and sharing it with three of the smartest people I've ever met is a different story.Nonetheless, on Friday night I utilized some free time at The Mill to throw myself headlong into researching. Place consciousness and social action are topics I've studied throughout my Master's program, so fortunately I have an adequate grasp on the concepts and have read many of the major pieces written about the topics. But tonight I began Gregory Smith and David Sobel's book Place-And Community-Based Education in Schools. I confess--I'm a total geek and love reading books about pedagogy. I'm two chapters in and have already begun to scribble down ideas. Since school started I've been grappling with how to merge place consciousness with social action. I've treated the two as separate two entities for the past two years. In an attempt to make my social action unit more effective, I want to merge the two. So the next post will outline my idea (it's tentative, and I need feedback on if this is really getting students to think locally and appreciate the local before they move to make change)......
9/13/09
Place Conscious Teaching Musings
I intended to be in bed by 8:00 tonight, but here I am...sitting up in bed at 10:00, blogging while listening to Wilco (I swear, EVERYTHING is better with Wilco).
I started on my reading assignments for my Place Conscious Teaching course tonight; I read "Place Conscious Education, Rural Schools, and the Nebraska Writing Project's Rural Voices, Country Schools Team" by Dr. Robert Brooke (my prof. for this course). After reading through it, I have so many thoughts running through my head. So I'm going to try and get them all out in hopes that I can sleep a bit:
1. As a teacher I have a strong desire for my students to be engaged and motivated to succeed in my class--I want them to want to succeed. I want them to think critically and to not be passive learners. I want to captivate them...Dr. Brooke writes, "Learning and writing and citizenship are richer when they are tied to and flow from local culture." Based on this quote, I think this place conscious thing is my ticket to engaging my students. I am convinced that, in order to make my class (which is a required class) relevant to my students, it must be tied to the local.
2. Curriculum is "ideas and practices that the learner retains and can use (Brooke 6)" and "[u]nless acquired information is used by students to construct understanding about the world as it currently exists for them, the time spent in acquisition will have been wasted (Theobald)." Wouldn't it be nice if every teacher/administrator/curriculum coordinator had this notion of curriculum?
3. Since I've started this class a few weeks ago I've been pondering what I could do in my classroom with place conscious education, but I've had a tough time identifying anything because I haven't been quite clear on what place conscious education is or what it looks like. Well folks, Dr. Brooke has saved the day. In his introduction to Rural Voices he points out five issues (as identified by Toni Haas and Paul Nachtigal in their pamphlet Place Value) that a place conscious curriculum should address:
I started on my reading assignments for my Place Conscious Teaching course tonight; I read "Place Conscious Education, Rural Schools, and the Nebraska Writing Project's Rural Voices, Country Schools Team" by Dr. Robert Brooke (my prof. for this course). After reading through it, I have so many thoughts running through my head. So I'm going to try and get them all out in hopes that I can sleep a bit:
1. As a teacher I have a strong desire for my students to be engaged and motivated to succeed in my class--I want them to want to succeed. I want them to think critically and to not be passive learners. I want to captivate them...Dr. Brooke writes, "Learning and writing and citizenship are richer when they are tied to and flow from local culture." Based on this quote, I think this place conscious thing is my ticket to engaging my students. I am convinced that, in order to make my class (which is a required class) relevant to my students, it must be tied to the local.
2. Curriculum is "ideas and practices that the learner retains and can use (Brooke 6)" and "[u]nless acquired information is used by students to construct understanding about the world as it currently exists for them, the time spent in acquisition will have been wasted (Theobald)." Wouldn't it be nice if every teacher/administrator/curriculum coordinator had this notion of curriculum?
3. Since I've started this class a few weeks ago I've been pondering what I could do in my classroom with place conscious education, but I've had a tough time identifying anything because I haven't been quite clear on what place conscious education is or what it looks like. Well folks, Dr. Brooke has saved the day. In his introduction to Rural Voices he points out five issues (as identified by Toni Haas and Paul Nachtigal in their pamphlet Place Value) that a place conscious curriculum should address:
(*I say students just because I am thinking of the classes I teach, but I see a place conscious approach to education helping me understand the community I live in as well).
- Ecology- In order to live well in a community, students* must have an understanding of the biology of our region. Students must understand how that biology connects to other facets of the community (local industry, agriculture, and other bio. issues that concern our community).
- Government- Participating in a community requires students to have an understanding of the local government and the ways our community makes decisions (city council, school board, economic development committees, etc). This understanding is best gained by participating in local government; by being invested in local issues.
- Livelihood- Students need to have an understanding of what people "do" in our community. They need to be aware of what career options are available and what experience is necessary in order to make a sustainable livelihood out of these careers.
- Spirituality- According to Haas and Nachtigal, this refers to "a person's way of understanding the connections and relationships that form a life, whether or not that understanding is based in any given institutionalized religion" (Brooke 12). Students should have an understanding of how people in our community have formed and continue to form connections. This could lead to studies of heritage or to connections people have with the land...this concept is still difficult for me to comprehend.
- Community values- This could take many forms. Basically, from Dr. Brooke's introduction I have gathered that students need to understand "who their community is and why it is that way" (12) which would require a study on heritage, values, history, and contemporary culture as well as encouraging a vision for the future that includes the community. Encouraging an investment in community values will teach students to be able to "act effectively in and with the community" (12).
8/30/09
Student I Am From poems
This semester I am teaching a section of English 12 that only has two students :) It is a new section and students didn't know about it until the first day of classes this school year, so I'm hoping to have more students enroll next semester! But until then I am enjoying having a small class...it's easier to get to know the students and I can offer them a more personalized education. On the first day of class last week all three of us wrote "I Am From" poems...these are from my two girls:
I Am From
I am from Cheryl and William.
From Ogallala and Lake McConaughy.
From small community and sandy hills.
I am from home cooking eaters, Chinese eaters, stroganoff and manicotti eaters.
I’m from politeness, kindness, love, and hospitality.
From a hair artist and telephone technician.
I am from “Be yourself even though its hard” and “Be kind to all, even your enemies”
I’m from no-abortion-no-homosexuality Baptists.
From all-me only child and only grandchild.
From no retiring, lifetime workaholics that I’m nothing alike.
From writing fantasy novels, reading Inkheart, and silver ford focus.
I am from then intense love of animals and expressing oneself in song.
From kittens, dogs, and anything else small and huggable.
From the love of working as a waitress and helping people.
I’m from the passion of singing and choir.
From blue roses and day lilies.
From shopping for clothes and shoes.
From meteorology, performing, and astronomy.
I am from finding all the constellations in the star lit sky to looking at the moon in a telescope.
From watching cartoons on Saturday morning and going to youth group on Wednesday.
From Cornelia Funke, Obert Skye, J.K. Rowling, and D.J. MacHale.
My own passion of expression through my art and my love for life.
I Am From
I am from Ron and Theresa
From the small town homeliness of beautiful Ogallala Nebraska
From where children are taught young “you will never have anything unless you are willing to go for it”
From where you see the red white in blue not just on the streets but in the people you see everyday
From where everyone knows your past your present and sometimes your future
From where you can’t get away for who you are and where you come from
I am from deer hunters and car racers
From lawful men and intellectual woman
From conductors and rail workers
From happiness, love and, togetherness
Form families both large and small
From hope, heartbreak and, loss
From “everything will always happen for a reason, you just got to live through it pumpkin” and “be strong no one can make you stop fighting but your own self, it’s all up to you”
From the crucifix and Christ
From water to blood
From bread to body
From virgin to mother
From lemonade stands, fun at the lake, and fishin’ at the ponds
From cornfields, bonfires, and cowtippin’
From sisterly love and horrible arguments
From proud father of a young soldier son
From the old and the new, from the great and the true
From strict but always right caring hands
From tears laughter and loads of confusion
From boots and spurs, farmers and ranchers
From responsibility, respect, and honest
From the golden rule and country grammar
From where a real man opens your doors and pulls out your chair
From home where you will always find a loving heart and a warm embrace, because living here we are just one big disfunctional but beautiful family, all together all for one, one for all, Ogallala Nebraska.
I Am From
I am from Cheryl and William.
From Ogallala and Lake McConaughy.
From small community and sandy hills.
I am from home cooking eaters, Chinese eaters, stroganoff and manicotti eaters.
I’m from politeness, kindness, love, and hospitality.
From a hair artist and telephone technician.
I am from “Be yourself even though its hard” and “Be kind to all, even your enemies”
I’m from no-abortion-no-homosexuality Baptists.
From all-me only child and only grandchild.
From no retiring, lifetime workaholics that I’m nothing alike.
From writing fantasy novels, reading Inkheart, and silver ford focus.
I am from then intense love of animals and expressing oneself in song.
From kittens, dogs, and anything else small and huggable.
From the love of working as a waitress and helping people.
I’m from the passion of singing and choir.
From blue roses and day lilies.
From shopping for clothes and shoes.
From meteorology, performing, and astronomy.
I am from finding all the constellations in the star lit sky to looking at the moon in a telescope.
From watching cartoons on Saturday morning and going to youth group on Wednesday.
From Cornelia Funke, Obert Skye, J.K. Rowling, and D.J. MacHale.
My own passion of expression through my art and my love for life.
***
I Am From
I am from Ron and Theresa
From the small town homeliness of beautiful Ogallala Nebraska
From where children are taught young “you will never have anything unless you are willing to go for it”
From where you see the red white in blue not just on the streets but in the people you see everyday
From where everyone knows your past your present and sometimes your future
From where you can’t get away for who you are and where you come from
I am from deer hunters and car racers
From lawful men and intellectual woman
From conductors and rail workers
From happiness, love and, togetherness
Form families both large and small
From hope, heartbreak and, loss
From “everything will always happen for a reason, you just got to live through it pumpkin” and “be strong no one can make you stop fighting but your own self, it’s all up to you”
From the crucifix and Christ
From water to blood
From bread to body
From virgin to mother
From lemonade stands, fun at the lake, and fishin’ at the ponds
From cornfields, bonfires, and cowtippin’
From sisterly love and horrible arguments
From proud father of a young soldier son
From the old and the new, from the great and the true
From strict but always right caring hands
From tears laughter and loads of confusion
From boots and spurs, farmers and ranchers
From responsibility, respect, and honest
From the golden rule and country grammar
From where a real man opens your doors and pulls out your chair
From home where you will always find a loving heart and a warm embrace, because living here we are just one big disfunctional but beautiful family, all together all for one, one for all, Ogallala Nebraska.
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