Imagine you are a high school student who is eagerly reading and discussing books about kids whose struggles resonate with your own experiences. You love the books, and you read every chance you get-on the bus, in the car, even after you are supposed to be asleep. Even though you’ve struggled all through school, you’re on a different path now. Learning is more fun because you can see how reading books relates to your life, your struggle, your desire for a better world. More amazingly, after all the years of failing grades, you are finally passing everything, including the state graduation test. School has become a place you enjoy, rather than a place to avoid. Then one day, you hear a rumor: The school board wants to discontinue your literature program.  It makes no sense to you or your classmates, who are also much more engaged in their learning and experiencing success similar to yours. It’s got to be a joke. But when the school administrators show up in your classroom one day and begin packing up all of the wonderful books you’ve read, you know the rumor was true.

The scenario described above actually happened to The Mexican American Studies program in Arizona.  Despite the success of thousands of students, despite students passing the state graduation tests, despite students successful enrolling in college, the program was shut down.  State Superintendent of Schools Huppenthal enforced the ban and stated that the books at issue were being removed from the schools because they presented a biased picture of American history that shows  “Latino minorities have been and continue to be oppressed by a Caucasian majority.”   This seems like a pretty obvious assertion from where I sit.  So where is the harm?  Why did these books need to be removed from the classrooms immediately, in some cases, disrupting classes?  What books could possibly warrant such a radical response?  For a more detailed accounting of Arizona’s radical act of censorship and information on some of the books deemed worthy of banning, take a look at Jeff Bigger’s  article from The Huffington Post where he interviews a teacher from the Mexican American Studies program regarding the program and why Shakespeare’s The Tempset  was banned. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/tucson-ethnic-studies-_b_1210393.htmls.  For further information on another book in the program, read this interview with Dr. Rudolfo Acuna, author of Occupied America, A History of Chocanos.  Dr. Acuna is a professor, historian, and social activist who teaches at California State University at Northridge. http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/9628-arizona-shuts-mexican-studies-classes.  I don’t know all the details of this unfolding crisis, but isn’t there a middle ground?  If people are upset or disagree with either what is being taught or how it is being taught, wouldn’t the community be better served by a dialog or mediation process?

After I read Bigger’s article, I reflected on my own reading experiences, grateful, that I had never directly experienced such an act of censorship. Then I remembered Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown.  In the late 1960’s as a student in a Catholic girls’ high school in Baltimore, Maryland,  Manchild in the Promised Land  was my summer reading assignment.  I remember this, not for the book itself, but for the controversy that it caused among some parents.  While I don’t remember many details from the book, I do remember my feelings as I read it.  I remember feeling confused by the world that Claude described, a world filled with cramped housing, street gangs, and people using heroin.  A world where people were afraid of the cops and kids went to reform schools.  Claude’s world was not my world, but I read his story with interest and fascination.  I remember feeling admiration for Claude simply for surviving and making a better life for himself.  I also remember the day the anonymous letter addressed to “The Parents of Ann Bracken” showed up at my house.

I could hardly wait until my father came home from work so that I could find out what was in that letter.  After both my mom and dad read it, they showed it to me.  The parents who wrote the letter had excerpted some parts of the book that they considered offensive and inappropriate for 15-year-old girls. I can still see the single-spaced pages and feel the vitriol and anger that poured from the letter.  And I remember my mom and dad’s reaction: they did nothing to stop me from reading the book.  They didn’t even call the school. They simply told me that sometimes people don’t like books that are about real life and some of the awful things that happen, but that shouldn’t prevent anyone from reading the book.  The sisters who ran the school were also undeterred by the letter.  A few days after the anonymous letter arrived, we also got one from the principal explaining that she had spoken to the parents about their concerns, and that we would still be reading the book as assigned.

In retrospect, that incident with Brown’s book taught me a valuable lessons that I appreciate more with the passage of time: ideas are meant to be challenged and debated, controversy is a part of life, and most importantly, that books can take you to places you may never otherwise experience.  I also appreciate that my parents trusted me to read something that other people wanted to hide from their children.  The irony of the whole Manchild in the Promised Land story is that my high school is located in a poverty-stricken area of Baltimore where most of the people live in Section Eight housing, the kind of place where Claude Brown may have grown up had he lived in Baltimore.  I remember thinking: If we could all go to school there, why couldn’t we read stories that might enlighten us about the kids who lived side-by-side with our school?  Why was that book so threatening?  Was it the cussing, the drugs, the sex, and references to prostitution?  Or was the book threatening because we were in the midst of the Civil Rights movement and the social order was being challenged daily—on our streets, in the evening news, and in the Congress?  With the benefit of hindsight, I am guessing it was more the implicit challenge to the social order that started the anonymous plea to ban the book.

Ask any student what makes a class worthwhile and they will likely tell you that they want to be challenged and engaged.  They want the material to relate to their lives.  And when it does, students will be with you all the way and work with surprising zeal.  Arizona’s  Mexican American Studies program engaged the students by providing reading material that spoke to their lived-experiences.  The teachers provided a safe space for them to discuss and process the ideas presented.  The kids were successful in school.  But people deemed the discussing of controversial ideas dangerous and the books were removed, boxed up, and put in closets.  But what about the ideas?  Those are not so easily disposed of.

Out of curiosity, I looked up a listing of frequently banned books in the United States and realized I had either read them myself or I had taught them in a literature classes.  Many of the books on the list are some of the most influential and memorable books I have ever read, including: The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, Huckleberry Finn, 1984, The Canterbury Tales, and Catch 22, and To Kill a Mockingbird.  To my way of thinking, the purpose of teaching literature is to explore and challenge ideas. A good teacher will always engage the students with some of the historical background information relevant to the novel.  Then as the students read and encounter ideas and experiences through engaging with the novel’s characters, the class can discuss and reflect on the ideas, often applying them to current situations.  Many teachers even assign novels in the context of history classes, as my college professor did by assigning The Grapes of Wrath and Babbitt.  Both of those novels explore important time-periods filled with social change and upheaval.  The Dust Bowl and the Oakies made a whole lot more sense to me as I travelled with the Joad family and experienced the hunger and desolation that swept our country in the Great Depression.

I consider myself fortunate to have read so many of the banned books.  I especially appreciate my parents for their open-minded response to a call for censorship and for their unflinching honesty and willingness to discuss controversies. I remember how reading The Diary of Anne Frank opened the door to a discussion of the Catholic Church’s actions during the Holocaust.  I challenged my mother’s assertion that “things could have been worse” (probably for Catholics), and went on to learn more about that time by reading Hitler’s Pope many years later. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird and our family discussing the unfairness of trials and the illegal lynching of Tom Robinson.  And it was my mother who served as an early model for activism when she read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring-and then paid us pennies to pick dandelions instead of spraying the lawn.

I am left to wonder what my life would have been like if I had never read those novels or discussed the ideas explored in them, if that one angry parent had won. And I am fortunate that my parents and my teachers were both open-minded and sensible when it came to encouraging me to explore the world of ideas found in literature.  I am also lucky that the adults in my life modeled positive ways to engage with conflicting opinions. And finally,  having both parented and taught adolescents for a number of years, I know that the surest way to get a kid curious enough to read something is to tell them they can’t.  Are you listening, Arizona?

But this is just the beginning.  This presentation will be part of an evening event where I will be given five minutes to present my show, but I will only have my first and last slides.  The thirteen in  the middle will be randomly selected by  Tim Hurson, Mindcamp’s Mastermind.  I will not know any of the content of my show until I am up in front of the audience……….Check back  in a few weeks and I will give you the low-down on Part two of Know Wonder!  Here is the original slideshow.  I hope you enjoy it and welcome your comments.

Know Wonder Slide Show

Reflect and enjoy

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Turn to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

This is the first post in a series planned to introduce readers to accessible poetry. What makes a poem accessible to the average reader? Direct language, well-chosen vocabulary, and relatively short length are a few of the components that can assist new poetry readers to feel a connection with a mode of expression many consider boring, obtuse, and irrelevant. Perhaps the only poetry you ever read was in school where you felt bogged down with difficult terms such as iambic pentameter and had trouble distinguishing between open or closed rhyme scheme. You always confused metaphor and simile. The only poems that made sense were the story poems such as “The Charge of the Lightbrigade” or the silly, entertaining poetry of Shel Silverstein. But the world of poetry is vast and waiting for the average person to sit down for a few minutes and absorb the beauty of language chosen with great care to communicate simple as well as profound thoughts. It is my hope that many of you will resonate with the poems I choose and will begin to feel as much at home with a book of poetry as you do with your favorite newspaper or novelist.

David Whyte is a modern poet whose voice is as clear and cloudless as the sky above Crater Lake. He is of English/Irish heritage, has a background in marine zoology, and uses poetry in the workplace to assist people in affecting change in their personal and work lives. He calls all of us out of our routine slumber and directs our gaze to places we may fear or wish to avoid. David asks us to risk being authentic in an increasing virtual world. “Sweet Darkness” is a poem that asks the reader to enter the particular place of darkness that is calling to you now.

Here the poet tells us there is only one thing to know right now: you are meant to be free, to take your own particular place in the grand scheme of life. Have you been going through some life-changing event? Large or small, scale does not matter here. All that matters is that you realize your place in the grand design and take that place. Maybe you are called on to leave a job that is choking you. Maybe a relationship needs to shift or even to end. Maybe there is a geographical change to make or a dream that you feel has always had your name on it. Whatever that world is, it is time to take your place. Know that others have done it before, the poet seems to be saying. You can do this. Just embrace the one world that is yours for the taking, no matter how small or how grand. The time is now and everthing is telling you that.

The darkness that has enveloped you has provided a place of safety and shelter to incubate your emerging self, to nourish new growth, or to give sustenance to your will. What is it in your life that has been too small for you? That has not allowed you to grow? The other question concerns a person. Who is it in your life that has stifled you? Who has placed you in a box that you have outgrown?

People ask me all the time, “How did you learn to speak Italian?” Well, it was really simple-one word at a time, practicing over and over. I bought CDs and listened to them while I drove to and from work. Actually, trying to learn another language kept my mind off of worries or anxieties surrounding my work as a special education teacher in a large, suburban high school. I also bought several books to go with the CDs and would read the dialogs, memorize the phrases, make flashcards……it was actually fun! I hadn’t attempted to learn another language since college. Back then, I was fluent in French and I had taken two years of Latin in high school, so there were a lot of links already in place in my brain. I actually used my knowledge of French and Latin to help me learn what I call “baby Italian.”

I could ask for food, get directions, buy things in a shop, order and send back wine, listen to the train announcements, and engage in basic conversation. People told me, “Everyone in Venice speaks English,” but my experience did not confirm that. There were many people who spoke a few words of English, enough to make a quick transaction. But if you wanted anything more, you needed to speak Italian. So I used to say, “Capisco bene, ma parlo come una raggazza piccola.” which means, “I understand pretty well, but I speak like a little girl.” That was pretty frustrating for someone who is articulate and enjoys writing and conversing as much as I do.

So what was the point? Why did I go alone and why would I bother to spend four or five months learning the basics of a language for such a short trip? Actually, going to Venice alone was about overcoming fear. See, I had never, ever gone to a foreign country before where I did not speak the language. I HAD to speak Italian if I wanted anything…..and it was really empowering to know I could navigate alone in a foreign country, find all the places I wanted to see-except the Biennalle Art exhibit-and spend about 90% of my daytrip to Trieste navigating in Italian. Yes, sir, if you can do that, you sure as heck can quit your job and start a business…..

Seriously, my “one tiny step” approach to learning and my success in venturing to Italy alone gave me a sense that I could succeed at pretty much anything I decided to focus on. This past year has been a year of major change-I lost about 15 pounds and two sizes, learned Italian, went to school in Ireland at Trinity College, and started my own business. My success with things in the physical world-like losing weight and speaking Italian-has given me the confidence to dare to succeed in other realms as well. And so far, so good. I am giving workshops, I have speaking engagements, and I will be presenting at the Maryland Writer’s Conference next May. Amazing….all I had to do was make a space….and that took all the courage I could muster. One line kept me going, “Leap and the net will appear.” So far, the leap is grand!

Next year…maybe a “Journal Journey” in Europe. Lets keep dreaming!

A couple of years ago I took an improv class with a talented Baltimore actor named Bruce Nelson. I have seen Bruce in several local plays, and always enjoyed his acting. The characters he has brought to life include an elf based on David Sedaris’ memoir of working as a Macy’s elf at the flagship New York store on 34th St. Because I wanted to feel a little looser in front of an audience — I am studying drama in education — I decided I needed some actual training in the art of acting. Improv seemed like the logical place to start. It’s improv, right? How hard could it be?

I walked into the darkened theater, hoping to slip in quietly because I was a few minutes late. Bruce was going over the attendance list and checking everyone off. “You must be Ann,” Bruce nodded in my direction. I slid down in my seat and grinned as I slipped off my coat.

Eclectic is the word that comes to mind when I think of the 20-35 people who made up my classmates. Most of them were a good bit younger, and there was a mix of men and women, though we outnumbered the men by about 3:1. Bruce began the class by going over the rules of improv — the first and most important rule is to say “Yes, and…” Simple enough. Whatever your partner says or does, you must say yes, and then build on it. Hmmmm, that could make for some interesting scenarios. I squirmed a little in my seat and hoped I wouldn’t have to say yes to anything too outrageous. As it turned out, Bruce’s ground rules worked so well that everyone enjoyed the surprises that came along with our agreement to “Yes, and.” Surprises like creating 10 lines of dialog with only a beginning and an ending line….you had to make “I love peanut butter,” and “The pope would never approve,” work in your scene. Or create a relationship with a passenger named Zeb knowing only that you were in a car going to work and your name was Mathilda.

Thinking back over other theater-related experiences, I had encountered some improv before Bruce’s class when I went through the Creative Emergence Process with Michelle James. In this program, no matter what we did, Michelle smiled and said “Yes, and…” whenever we said “No” or hesitated with “But.” She even challenged us to eliminate the word but from our vocabulary and replace it with and….Try this exercise and see how changing your words can actually change the way you are perceiving the world. Saying “And” opens doors, affirms another person, creates a feeling of flow. Saying “But” on the other hand, shuts a door, marginalizes others’ opinions, and negates possibility. Just give it a shot for a day, and you’ll be amazed at how many opportunities come your way for changing your response.

“Yes, anding,” as we call it in improv, has had a powerful impact on my life. I say yes to all kinds of opportunities in the course of a business day. I think of this practice as being similar to following new roads on a map – You just might find your dream-house as you wander in unknown territory. I said yes to a friend when he asked me if I was interested in writing a paper on journaling in business education. The topic was somewhat new to me, and I knew I’d learn something. The real impetus was the possibility that the paper, if accepted, could land me a trip to Madrid and the opportunity to present at an international business conference. My inner cynic snickered a little every time I worked on the project, and my shining optimist won out and finished the paper on time, sending it off with grand hopes.

The deadline for acceptance notification passed. One day late, then three…finally, I got an acceptance email and celebrated with my co-authors, Alexei Mateev and Rick Milter. I thought I’d be presenting with Alex. However, about a month before the conference, he accepted a free trip to China – once he determined that I would be all right to present alone. “Yes, and…” I thought, “I’ve never done anything like this before.” Excitement mixed with some jitters as I realized what exactly I’d said yes to. Presenting a paper at an international business conference in a foreign country…..My shining optimist is sitting tight, patting my hand, and whispering, “Yes, and you’ll be fine. You can do this. How exciting!” I’m glad there is room for her in my carry-on.