BEING WHO WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BECOME

Kathleen Jackson, a teacher in Marin County , CA, posts the following process she shared with Robert Shetterly and her students, using the poem , “The Peace of Wild Things” by truth teller, Wendell Berry. 

When Rob Shetterly visited our school in the fall of 2009, he not only talked about social issues, art and writing; he recited poetry. One of his recitations was ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ by Wendell Berry, which many students love. With Rob’s encouragement, I had my 7^th and 8^th grade students read this poem several times aloud in class, then close-read the poem. We discussed it, and they then wrote two to three paragraphs on what it means to them to be free. From there I had them write a poem following Berry’s format. Every student shared his or her final draft with the rest of the class, which led to provocative discussions around the concept of being free.

 

Following are excerpts from students’ reflections about being free, their actual poems, and quotes about the process.

 

I find freedom in nature. In nature there are absolutely no requirements; a person can simply live. I personally feel the most free when I am running over wide expanses of grass or sand, my legs effortlessly moving faster that they ever have during the mile run feeling like I could never stop. Everything in nature is free, like the trees reaching toward the sun or the hawks circling from above; and, for a moment, so am I. No one sees me but the animals and they don’t care. I can do almost anything I want in nature; I am free to move, think and speak. In nature I am happy, but most of all I am free.                                                                                 M.H.

 

I am not free when I am at school. I feel trapped, controlled, and without options. I am under a strict monarchy. I am not truly free until I see the beauty of the snow in front of me. It is then that my eyes light up, my heart starts beating faster, and I am anxious to to and play in it. Snow lets me release myself and forget about everything else in the world. I have only snow. No cars, no fires, no fears. Just snow.                                     M.C.                          

Being free is being able to be myself without having anyone judge me for being me. I was created to be the way the way I am, and I need to stay that way, no matter what people say or think.                                     L.B.

 

 

Although freedom is something that we are born with in this country, I know that the only way I can be completely free is to find it within myself.         M.G.

 

I experience freedom when I am by the bay near my house. I don’t have to think about my problems, and nothing feels that important. I just sit on the rocks and watch the waves crash down. I smell the fennel bushes, and I am peaceful. No one can tell me what to do here; there are no rules or restrictions. This is where I am free.                                             M.L.N.

 

Freedom is a state of mind. We are able to be creative, unique, and different when we are free. Freedom occurs when we are able to be ourselves, when we don’t hold back and let loose with no fear of criticism or doubt. There is nothing more powerful.                                             H.M.

 

I swim. The water frees me in a way I can’t describe. The cool feeling against my skin allows my soul to relax, open up, lose the day’s unwanted tension and grief. It helps me realize that I am capable of more than I know, that I have so much more to offer others and myself than I am aware of. It gives me power, a power that comes only with freedom. Only in moments like these, where I am in a certain kind of bliss, can I feel free, feel like I am myself, where I find myself beyond the separation between what I can and cannot do.                                                                                           M.J.

 

POEMS

 

 

Comforting Privacy by Megan G

 

When life gets hard and there is a homework overload

I cannot be around anyone in my life

I walk up the stairs and calmly shut my door

And take in the space of the room.

No one there, just me, my music, my dresses, and my books

The privacy comforts me; it makes me free

I prance to the closet where my arty dresses lie

One catches my eye, the one that will float me around the room

The one that will sway me from side to side

As the delicate music plays.

My body is free to do what it wants

My body takes over my brain and drifts me to

The bookshelf. I bury my nose into a book.

And I am nowhere

 

Peace of Mind

Hanna M

 

In the outside world

My mind is hard at work

But when all is done

I set myself free

Because freedom is

A state of mind

Where there are no restrictions

And no fear

Of criticism,

Judgment,

Or fear of fear itself

Because freedom is one girl

In her world

And that cannot be taken

Away

 

Familiar Faces by Katherine S

 

When I feel I’m alone

And I’m lost and trapped in the darkness

I think of my family’s smiles, reflecting like mirrors through my brain

The light bells of my sister’s laugh echo and ring

Taking walks on the beach with my dad,

The silence so easy that no one feels

The need to say a word.

I think of the familiar sound of my mom opening the garage door

And entering with a tired smile

I fall into a peaceful state

Where I can be myself

Once again I think of my family’s faces

And I finally find my way out of the darkness

I am free

 

The Forest Glade

Nick Ogden

 

When timeless space drifts across the glade

I feel free

When breezes blow away my troubles

And expel the storm of thoughts from my mind

I feel free

When the sun beats down on me

And warms my heart

I feel free

When I can’t believe what I see

And beauty is all that lies before me

I feel free

 

 

Meant to Be

Lily B

 

I am not perfect

I do not care

I am the way I want to be

And when great sadness grows in me

I remember that I am free

Free from pain

Free from war

Free from hunger

And free from fear

I go outside and hear the wind

Sing its forlorn song

As the trees bend to listen

I know I am free when I see the world

As it was meant to be

 

The Moment of Serenity by Nick Watkins

 

Caged in a box with work and stress building up

Paralyzed thinking while emotions

Break loose like a dog released from its empty cage

As the hot flames start to melt down,

I come into the moment of serenity

Deep breaths blown into the air

When at that time the emotions of a fly struggling in a spider’s trap

Give way to the feelings of a bird coasting over the white, sugary snow

The pain and anxiety are flushed away

 

Freedom is Nowhere by Nick F

 

Freedom is a rare taste to me

I have small glimpses every once in awhile

Weekends and nights

Temporary reprieves

But then back to reality

School and discipline

Forced to think certain thoughts

Work, problems, and thoughts all day

Then I’m in the desert with

No civilization for miles around

Freedom at last

 

 

Finding Freedom by Simone Harrison

 

Anxiety and the unknown blind me

Binding me to worries, choices, my future

And forming the prison of my mind

Yet the more I try to escape, the more trapped I become

 

Throw me a book, a lifeline

Imagination, my map

And laughter my wings

These are small reprieves from my cage, but not escape

Nature contradicts the very chemistry of this jail

Warps and bends it until it is no more

Dissolved within the steady magnificence of it

Individuals flourish yet are all connected with the ambience of nature

So am  I filled with the joy and tranquility that the growing plants emanate

Full of peace and contentedness that now is now

And then will be then

Simplicity is just a word

But this simplicity is freedom

 

When Things Don’t go as Planned by Amaia Etcheverry

 

When things don’t go as planned

And I lie awake at night

In fear that tomorrow will be worse than today

I go and look at pictures of them

Happy, warm smiles and joy

I come into the peace of being with friends

Who accept me for who I am and

Who are there through thick and thin.

And I can feel their presence in my heart

For a time I rest with their memory and I am free.

 

The Sky is not the Limit by Narimon Farenghi

 

When I do not have time

To live my life without constant interruptions

In fear of what my obligations will force me to do

I go to the place floating in the air

Where the sky is breached

Full of holes

Where goals were achieved and where wishes came true

I feel the holes in this place

While waiting for my sky not to be the limit

I look up at the beautiful patterns

And I am free.

 

Night Owl by Samantha Jolson

 

In the midst of my hectic life

I find no solace in weekends and breaks

For they cannot change the work that is sure to come

The burden of twenty responsibilities

Takes its toll on me and my sanity

Every night I watch the hills swallow the sun and the stars come out of hiding

One by one they emerge

From the darkened sky

And bound through their stable surroundings

I sit at the window, reading, writing, watching, relating

The night is their time

And their time is mine

The nighttime is mine

I am free

 

Free in Water

Matthew J

 

Restriction and boundaries

locking me inside

my own shortcomings.

They melt away in water

the restrictions dissolving

crumbling. And I am left,

me, with nothing to shield me

from my own perfection, my own power.

My restrictions gone, my shortcomings evaporated

Leaving me

Free

 

 

Reflections following the project:

 

I never really knew when I was actually free, and this poem helped me get it out in the open.                                                                                 C.M.

 

Writing a freedom poem was an eye-opening opportunity for me to reflect and look deeply inside myself. It helped me understand who I am as a person while exploring myself as a poet.                                             S.K.

 

This exercise made me think about what freedom means to me. It wasn’t about what we are promised in the Constitution, although that is very important), it was something more…sometime when I actually feel completely free. Overall, this project made me think more than anything else.                                                                                                   K.D.

 

 

Writing the poem made me think more about what it means exactly to be free. I could argue that one is never free, but that argument could also turn into one is always free, kind of like how is everyone is rich, then no one is. It was interesting to think about when I’m free and then try to capture that moment. This would have been easier, cooler, if there hadn’t been a ‘follow the Wendell Berry format’.                                                                G.L.                                                              

 

Writing prose or a poem about feeling free seems like it didn’t give me the actual feeling but gives instead a description of what freedom is in a way that rings true and leaves my mind wandering searching for freedom.  S.H.

 

It was interesting to read the poem in depth, finding metaphors and hidden messages, and then contemplate freedom.                                      N.F.

 

Before reading the poem, I felt free. But then, when I really thought about it, I thought more about what made me happy…leading into what makes me feel free.                                                                                           A.H.

 

When I first read this poem, I was merely looking at words. I read it again, now visualizing images, and the poem sprang to life. I saw a moonlit lake, glistening and rolling as a gentle breeze blew over it. I saw a rich, lively forest full of animals. I saw a huge drake in the lake. It was very peaceful.                                                                                                                                             N.F.

When I read Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” I thought about his special place, his escape, how he wanders there, almost subconsciously,, how it feels instinctual to him. I thought about where I go as my escape,, and I decided that, whether I acknowledged it or not, I find myself often wandering to the same laces,, most common of which is the dock by the bay.                                    A.D.

 

When I was panicking about how to finish this assignment, I took my laptop to my desk by the window; and I realized that this was when I was free. I sat down and began writing.                                                                                                            S.J.

 

“The Peace of Wild Things” is an interpretive goldmine. In it Wendell Berry wonders what will happen to his children through any problem. These problems, such as financial woes and corruption, are happening today. When all is lost, we must find a quiet place where man is not judged, but only accepted.            A.D.