You Will Be Found

Dear Teachers,

I like the sound of rain on the roof. The steady patter is comforting and timely. (I reseeded a bit of lawn and it needs the rain.) There is also a hint of fall in the cool air this late August morning. The light is changing and so are the seasons. It’s like a signal to Jeanette and all the other teachers I know. She has been working on and off in her classroom for a couple weeks, but now she gets that look in her eye when she thinks about her new kindergarten students. Already she is out looking for monarch caterpillars to bring to school, and this year she decided an old cast iron bathtub filled with pillows and blankets will provide a perfect spot for reading in her classroom. Jeanette knows that one of her major goals – maybe the most important – is to help these little people learn to love what happens at school. To learn the skills necessary to engage in the life of the intellect, but also to learn the social skills necessary to build supportive communities. To find a place that feels safe and caring. I have come to marvel at the unique challenges of her work. Just yesterday she was discussing with a fellow teacher the strategies she had to employ to get one of her students to overcome her fear of the noisy self- flushing toilet at school so she could use the bathroom! I know you are busy preparing, but permit me to make a few observations about the start of this new school year.

I hope you will forgive me if I state what seems to be obvious to you. As I’ve grown older, I’m sometimes surprised by what I didn’t see before. As some of you know, I am a believer in the power of storytelling. As a narrative species we spend much of our time sharing our experiences through stories. In the hands of a good playwright, a story can be used to help us better understand our lives and the world around us. The Theatre can be a place of powerful learning. Recently I had the good fortune – thanks to Jeanette – to attend a performance of a Broadway musical called Dear Evan Hansen. In a nutshell it is the story of a socially awkward teenager and his single mother trying to find some sense of purpose and satisfaction in these complicated times. I have known students like Evan Hansen – thoughtful, generous, shy, awkward – who can’t seem to find a place to fit in. He also loves his mom and doesn’t want her to worry.  I could identify with Heidi, Evan’s mother, trying to encourage her son to see beyond his limits. When she sings, “Does anybody really know how the hell to do this?” I could only smile and shake my head recalling my own confusion about parenting.  And if the reaction of the audience was any guide, many others felt the same way. Here’s the thing.  At the heart of this beautiful piece of theatre is the old, old truth we often talk about but have so much trouble applying – empathy and compassion are the most important emotions in our society. How do we see the world through another’s eyes and how do we help one another? How do we help our children develop these essential skills? Of course we want our children to read, write, and calculate, but we need them to know how much we need each other.  And this is where your job gets complicated and essential, especially in a world that is struggling to understand the impact of the “gadgets” that surround us. So while we continue to debate about subject matter, I will leave it to you to look into our kids eyes and help them find their place in our world. Help them learn to read and write, but never forget the power you have to comfort and inspire. And by all means, see Dear Evan Hansen.

Have a good year.

A poem:

The New Criticism

My stepdaughter
says I’m boring.
“Everything you say
is boring and like
so seventies.” Her mother
says I’m wonderful, though.
“She’s being fresh. Don’t
listen to her,” she says.
But I can’t help listening
because I want to be
fresh and not boring,
and I want to say ‘like’
like my stepdaughter
because everything
is like something, not
exactly but sort of.
And she’s so contemporary
and provocative and like
alive. She knows all the new
neologisms and would
never use neologism
in a poem. Like ever.

………..Paul Hostovsky