Tag Archives: school

Short Walk to Long Remember

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Going for a walk, Walt Whitman poetically penned, left him “enrich’d of soul” and I am of a similar mind.

Indeed, few things leave me feeling more “enrich’d” than a walk on the beach, barefooted naturally, ideally at the shoreline where retreating waves leave the sand wet and cool and firm, but also little squishy between one’s toes.

A walk in the woods is likewise soulful, Walden Pond being one of my most memorable strolls for it is as beautiful as it is famous, and yet such natural splendor is not required to for a walk to be unforgettable.

Nor is a magical walk measured always by miles or hours. The other day, as example, a short walk on a city sidewalk instantly claimed a spot in my heart alongside a second-date beach stroll with a lovely brunette who would become my wife; alongside a hike up-Up-UP the switchbacking trail of Yosemite Falls with my son when he was in grade school; alongside a saunter down the aisle with my daughter, her hand wrapped around my arm and my heart wrapped around her little finger, on her wedding day.

I wish you could see a photograph of my latest walk to remember. It was snapped surreptitiously from behind as my 5-year-old granddaughter and I walked side by side, her little hand reaching up and engulfed in mine reaching down.

Maya, her sandy-blonde hair in a ponytail, seems a human rainbow in a blue-white-and-peach T-shirt, shamrock green leggings and pink sneakers, with a purple backpack decorated with a yellow heart and smiley face.

Her monochromatic escort, meanwhile, wears grey hiking shorts, a black pullover with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows for the morning is sunny and already warm, and black flip-flops.

Unseeable from behind, Maya and I are also wearing smiles.

We are on the way to school, her next-to-last day of preschool before starting kindergarten. To the left of us are some handsome trees, parked cars to the right, and a scattering of fallen leaves on the narrow sidewalk underfoot.

Our strides match perfectly—our outside feet stepping forward and inside feet pushing back in unison in the photograph—as Maya takes slightly longer steps than usual, almost skipping with helium in her socks, while I have shortened mine.

Walking from our car parked down the block to the school’s front door, then two hallways to Classroom 1, takes only a few minutes yet is time enough to talk a little and laugh some, too.

“What are you going to do in school today?” I ask.

“Play,” Maya answers with unusual succinctness.           

“Play is good,” I say and try again: “What do you think you are going to learn today?”

“I don’t know or I’d already know it,” Maya replies, looking up with a wry and playful smile.

She proceeds to tell me that NeNe, this being what she calls my wife, wants to come to school—not to drop her off, but to be a student so she can learn new things.

“What classroom would she be in?” I ask and the reply comes sprinkled with a giggle: “I think there isn’t a classroom number high enough because NeNe is too old for my school.”

“How about me?” I follow up. “Could I be a student here?”

“Oh, yes, Bruno,” Maya sings, using her pet name for me. “You can be in my classroom because you act like a kid.”

“An early-morning walk,” said Henry David Thoreau, echoing Mr. Whitman, “is a blessing for the entire day.”

My day had been blessed indeed, my soul “enrich’d.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Tiny Grads and Big Emotions

by Woody

For the past week I have had a song stuck in my head. More accurately, a stanza from “Turn Around” and it goes:           

“Turn around and they’re two. Turn around and they’re four. Turn around they’re a young man heading out the door” – or a young woman, of course.

Wayne Bryan, father of the legendary tennis tandem Mike and Bob, shared these lyrics with me back, back, back when my daughter was born. It remained on my mind, and in my heart, until Dallas and her younger brother Greg headed out the door as young adults.

Maya marches in to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Wayne, who had these lines of wisdom hanging on a wall at home as a constant reminder of how fleeting the time he would have with his twin sons was, later explained in his parenting book “Raising Your Child to be a Champion in Athletics, Arts, and Academics”:

“I found this to be so true. Mike and Bob hit their first tennis balls at age two on Monday, went to kindergarten on Tuesday, entered high school on Wednesday and graduated on Friday. At Stanford, they went up there on Monday and they were going out on the professional tour after their sophomore years on Tuesday.”

By Thursday, Mike and Bob were retiring with 16 grand slam championships and 119 tour titles together after spending 438 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world, and by Friday had their own children to turn around and see grow as if in time-lapse.

It’s no different for grandparents. One day I turned around and my first grandchild, Maya, was born; the next day I turned around and she was two; and yesterday – last week, in truth – I turned around and she was four and graduating from preschool and headed to pre-K.

Grownups sometimes, oftentimes actually, forget how little things are amplified into big things for youngsters. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever seen Maya happier, not even on Christmas morning, smiling so wide she almost sprained her face with joy at her recent graduation ceremony.

The happy and proud graduate and parents.

Nor seen her more proud, for she was beaming like human sunshine. To her, the certificate, rolled up like a baton and tied with a red ribbon, might as well have been a diploma from Harvard.

I wish you could have seen Maya and all her classmates in their miniature full-length gowns of royal blue and matching mortarboard caps, complete with gold tassels, as they marched in among balloons and “Happy Graduation” banners while “Pomp and Circumstance” played.

Beforehand, I would have thought all of this was over-the-top silly. It proved to be as wonderful as fresh strawberries in wintertime. I dare say there wasn’t a pair of eyes in attendance (or watching the video afterwards) that weren’t moist, some even spilling over a little. To be sure, additional lyrics from “Turn Around” gripped my heart and squeezed gently:

“Where have you gone my little girl, little girl, / Little pigtails and petticoats where have you gone? / Turn around you’re tiny, turn around then you’re grown / Turn around you’re a young wife with babes of your own . . . Turn around and they’re young, turn around and they’re old / Turn around and they’ve gone and we’ve no one to hold.”

After the little honorees had all walked across the stage, the principal announced, “You finally did it! The Class of 2023!” Again, at first blush this might seem grandiose silliness for preschool, and yet—

—turn around, turn around, Maya and her friends will be marching with their high school graduating Classes of 2036.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Building Cathedrals Begins Anew

by Woody

Backpacks, notebooks and pencils have been bought, lunches packed, sneakers tied in double-knots, say “cheese” smiles flashed for milestone pictures before heading off to begin a new school year…

…and an old story I read about the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. has come to my mind. Bear with me and I will get around to the connection.

The magnificent cathedral took eight decades to build, 83 years to be precise, from 1907 to 1990, and near the end of construction progress slowed to a crawl because it became harder and harder to find experienced stonecutters with the skill necessary to prepare the stones properly to fit perfectly.

Curious about this nearly lost art, a newspaper writer went to the job site and interviewed two of the remaining master craftsmen who were now well up in age. Specifically, the writer asked the pair to explain what they were doing.

“I’m shaping this stone,” the first stonecutter replied, running a calloused hand over his smooth handiwork before pointing to a section of a rising wall, “so that it fits into that space over there.”

The second stonecutter, making a sweeping gesture towards the sky, had a grander answer: “I am building a cathedral.”

Schoolteachers, it seems to me, are very much like stonecutters, shaping their lessons to fit into the spaces that need to be filled with knowledge so a cathedral – each student – can rise tall and proud. Instead of shaping stones, teachers help shape minds. Joseph Addison, a 17th English century poet, echoed this stonecutter analogy when he wrote: “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”

Teachers, thus, help sculpt souls and there can be no higher calling. John Wooden certainly believed so, noting: “I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.”

Master teachers do their stonecutting with lectures and instruction, surely, but also with words of praise and inspiration; with grace and goodness; with humor often and discipline when necessary; and always, always, always the best in the profession perform their magic with encouragement.

Indeed, when my mind races back in time for a stroll through my school hallways and I recall the teachers, one after another, who made the biggest impact on me, it is not the facts and figures and rules of grammar they taught me that I most remember. Rather, it is the way the unforgettable teachers lifted me skyward with their encouragement. I am confident it was the same for you.

As with building a cathedral of bricks or cut stones, a student takes many years, decades even, to rise to full potential. As the adage has it, teachers do not see their individual successes until at least two decades after each student exits their classroom.

Just as it takes many stonecutters to build a cathedral, it takes countless teachers to help a student soar. It is, in fact, a relay effort with each teacher handing the baton to another, year after year, elementary school to middle school to high school and often further onward.

Castles, like cathedrals, require stonecutters. However, “castles in the air” are often interpreted to mean having daydreams that will never become reality. Henry David Thoreau, a daydreamer to be sure, disagreed, writing: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Teachers, the really good ones, are master stonecutters at helping students put the foundations under their castles in the air.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

Run Turns Into Schoolyard Recess

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Distance Run Turns Into

Schoolyard Recess

            “Hi!” a girl, perhaps entering third grade when the new school year begins, called out enthusiastically.

I was circling a half-mile loop around soccer fields during my daily run on a recent weekday afternoon while a youth summer camp was in full swing. About three-dozen kids were enjoying recess-like activities including tag, jump rope and various games with balls.

“Hi!” the same girl repeated, now waving, on my next loop as if seeing me for the first time. A couple of her friends joined in: “Hi” and “Hey Running Man!”

“Hello!” I replied, adding quickly as I passed, “are you having a fun summer?”

“Yessss!” they sang in chorus.

In fits and starts, as I passed by I continued a conversation with what was now five girls sitting in a circle on the grass having snacks: “When does school start?”

Gleeful again: “Next week!”

Next lap: “Are you excited for school?”

“Yessss!” again in song.

I do not like to stop during a run, but on the next lap I did so briefly to ask the five girls, “What grades are you going to be in this year?”

The answers, one by one around the circle, all accompanied by smiles: “Third, fourth, fourth, second, third.”

Off I resumed, my stride feeling as light as Hermes with his winged feet.

Next time around, I was greeted by a boy holding his palm up to give me a high-five; the following loop, a line of kids did so.

It is my experience that the best runs transform themselves from effort into play. In other words, they become recess. For the better part of the 22 laps of this 11-mile run, I was a fifth-grader lost in recess fun.

I say fifth-grader specifically because my teacher that year, Mr. Hawkins, used to join us on the playground and grass field. Some days he would shoot baskets with us; other times we would run pass patterns and he would throw football spirals to us; too, he was pitcher for both teams in softball games.

On this day, I became Mr. Hawkins – albeit in Nikes and T-shirt instead of wingtips and his familiar square-ended knitted necktie. On one loop, a boy camper handed me a football and ran out for a pass. Slowing, but still on the run, I threw wildly.

Half of a mile later, I took another handoff but this time I stopped, planted my feet, and threw a touchdown spiral to make Rams quarterback Jared Goff – or Mr. Hawkins – proud.

Another loop around, a girl tossed me a foam Frisbee. I caught it, but my return toss sailed off-target in a side breeze and she giggled. I retrieved the errant disc and this time made an accurate throw that was rewarded with a happy young smile.

There was more fun. On a couple laps, I found myself with running companions for about 100 meters and was reminded of the races we had with Mr. Hawkins to the far fence on the playground grass.

The order of events this day is beyond my recall, but they included jumping rope until I missed; playing dodge ball when a basketball-sized fuzzy tennis ball was rolled at my feet – “Good jump, Mister!”; and being asked by a girl to spray sunscreen on her back.

This day, I did not care what pace my GPS running watch showed.

This day, I recalled the words of golfing legend Walter Hagen: “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. You’re only here for a short visit. So don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.”

This day, I stopped to play.

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FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Back-to-School Good Samaritan

by Woody

 Woody’s acclaimed memoir

WOODEN & ME is available HERE at Amazon

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Back-to-School Good Samaritan

Too often a story becomes news because someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

David Pichon is the flip side of the coin.

“I just happened to be in the right place, at the right time,” David shares, adding an all-important third element, “in the right frame of mind.”1schoolsupplies

The right place was Walmart in Camarillo. The right time was mid-afternoon two Mondays past. The right frame of mind is something David, now 50, learned as a boy from his father: “If you can, you should.”

So when David, who stands 6-foot-4, was milling around waiting for a cashier’s check to be printed so he could pay his rent, saw 5-foot-2 Maya Geisler struggling to reach notebooks on the top shelf, he stepped in to help.

Realizing Maya had forgotten to get a shopping cart, David next went to retrieve one while she counted out notebooks for her incoming class of 24 second-graders at Somis Elementary School.

“I thought that was so nice,” Maya recalls.

The kindness was only beginning.

If you can, you should. On his way to see if his cashier’s check was ready, David asked a store clerk to let him know when Maya got in line for the register.

When she did, David appeared. Doing some second-grade math in his head, he quickly figured there weren’t enough supplies for a full classroom of students. He rushed back to the back-to-school aisle and loaded up a second shopping cart with more sets of crayons, pencils, and a full box of notebooks.

He then paid for the entire bounty.

“I just couldn’t believe how generous this stranger was,” Maya rejoins. “I started crying a bit.”

More tears flowed when David pushed the cart to her car and helped load the largess into the trunk.

“You’re never going to miss a few dollars spent helping someone else,” David says, understating his generosity. “Really, what I did wasn’t a big deal.”

Maya disagrees. A single mother with two boys, she admits money is “super tight.” To her, David’s deed was a very big deal.

Knowing only the first name of the Back-To-School Good Samaritan, Maya posted a brief summary of the random act of kindness on her Facebook page and mentioned the business van David drove off in: Sound Doctor 911. Sure enough, someone recognized her hero as the owner of the Camarillo store that installs automotive stereo systems.

Maya’s heartfelt 164-word message on Facebook struck a chord and quickly went viral. In just days it was shared 7,000 times.

“Teachers are contacting me full of love and genuine thanks,” David allows, noting he has received more than 2,000 emails. “I’ve heard from people in Australia, Thailand, Africa, and all across the U.S. The beautiful part is the way others are responding by paying it forward because they were inspired by me.”

David pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts, and adds sincerely: “The attention I’m getting is really undeserved. I didn’t pull someone from a burning building.”

No, but he did step forward to help a teacher during these times of burning school budgets.

Maya, now in her 11th year as an educator after previously working in banking and nursing, estimates she spends about $600 out of her own pocket each year on supplies for her students and classroom.

“We do it because we love our jobs and our students,” says Maya.

She is the norm, not the exception.

His act of kindness for Maya was not the exception for David, either. He is a loyal supporter of Casa Pacifica and the Boys & Girls Club, and also donates blood regularly.

To be sure, he has a remarkable heart – all the more so when you learn that this father of four, and grandfather of one, has survived two heart attacks in the past 22 months.

“I think I’m still here so I can do more,” David allows. “None of us can fix the world, but we can all help fix our own neighborhood. Like I said, my father taught me, ‘If you can, you should.’ ”

He could, he did.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Columns: Teachers Speak Out

by Woody

Some Teachers at End of Their Rope

 

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” Atticus Finch wisely says in the great novel To Kill a Mockingbird. “. . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
            A handful of emails from local teachers allowed me to climb into their skin and walk around in it – and better understand why a growing number feel at the end of their rope.

 

To begin, consider this actual classroom exchange one local high school teacher, who I’ll call “Ms. C” to respect her privacy, recounted:Apple1

 

“Student: ‘Ms. C, Do you allow make up tests? I didn’t read the book.’

 

“(Keep in mind that we read the first two chapters together. They had to read one chapter on their own – 12 pages.)

 

“Me: ‘Um, no. In the future I suggest you do the reading.’

 

“Student: ‘Wow. That’s harsh.’
“Really? *sigh*”

 

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            My recent column about the mini-documentary “Black Out”, which focuses on the great lengths students in Guinea go to in order to study under public lights at gas stations and parking lots because they do not have electricity at home, brought a number of sighs from teachers who wished they saw more of this attitude in their classrooms.

 

            “Powerful column today,” wrote S.K. “I especially applaud the paragraph which reads, ‘More simply, I wish every classroom in America would require its students – and parents – . . .’

 

“Including parents is huge! My 30-something niece called me this morning. She told of her daughter, my grandniece, in the fifth grade, not performing well on a test. My niece and her husband – who is a Special Education teacher – contacted the teacher to see what they could do to help. I applauded their pro-active stance and willingness to play an active role in their daughter’s education.

 

“If more parents were pro-active in the education of their children, if more parents placed more value on education, perhaps we would not see our test scores declining.”

 

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From S.Z., this heavy sigh:

 

“My daughter is a math teacher at (area high school) and the excuses she gets are as stupid as ‘the dog ate . . .’ Or no excuse and no homework assignment done either.

 

“Parents often aren’t much better. They don’t require their kids to even go to school, much less attend class, and wonder why their little darling is failing which, by the way, is now not allowed – no more failing kids.

 

“The same was true when I taught. A kid in English – ninth through 12th grades – would come to school every day with no homework. He took no tests; just sat there. At 18 he was sent on his way functionally illiterate.”

 

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And this from J.G.:

 

“I retired from Ventura Unified after 36 years of public school teaching. Due to something beyond our control I’m back doing some sub work at a couple of schools.

 

“I have always enjoyed being with kids so for the most part find it enjoyable even at my age. But boy have things changed. The kids (not all be any stretch of the imagination, but enough) are very hard to handle, are unresponsive, and downright disrespectful.

 

“There’s plenty of blame to go around, but from my vantage point I believe parents have done their kids a disservice by indulging them in so many things. Middle school kids carry iPhones, have plenty of money, wear a new $40 baseball cap every other week, etc. I really believe that we have hurt our kids.

 

“I think your column got my attention also because part of our family is living, studying, and teaching in Kenya at this time. Their dad, our middle son, was serving in missions in Africa when he contacted encephalitisand perished last February. They feel out of place in the U.S. and prefer living among people who don’t have everything.

 

“My hat is off to the kids you described . . . ”

 

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            Indeed, hats off to kids who study – and also to their parents who demand it and teachers who inspire it. 

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

 

Column: Back to School with Batman

by Woody

Back to School with Batman

 

            Social media was all a-Twitter with outrage earlier this week when it was announced Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in the upcoming sequel to “Man of Steel.”

 

            As someone who routinely wore Bat Gloves complemented by a bath towel safety-pinned around my neck to kindergarten, I am more steamed that Batman is guest starring in a Superman movie rather than the other way around.BatmanLunchbox

 

            But here is what really got my Bat Tights in a twisted bunch – the fact that my mom long ago tossed out the “Batman and Robin” lunchbox I used in first grade. On eBay these lunchboxes produced in 1966, the year the Batman TV series debuted, are now collectibles selling for more than $200 – higher if the Thermos is still intact. The fact that any of the Thermoses have survived nearly five decades boggles my mind because I am fairly certain I dropped mine and shattered its glass liner within five days.

 

            The lunchbox itself was far more durable. This was a good thing because while Batman had to contend with the Joker, Riddler and Penguin, my super villain was Adam – a lunch-stealing black lab about the size of a grizzly bear who lived along my walking route to school.

 

I should point out that my mom packed my lunch pretty much every school day of my elementary life. That is roughly 1,100 lunches. All of them, I believe, were Oscar Meyer bologna on white Wonder Bread along with either two Hostess Ho-Ho’s or one larger Ding-Dong.

 

My great friend Dan Means’ mom, meanwhile, always packed him a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and Fritos. One memorable day in first grade, Dan had trouble opening the mini-bag of corn chips. His frustration growing, Dan gripped the opposite sides of the bag extra tightly and gave a mighty tug and . . .

 

. . . RIPPP! Whoosh! The entire sealed seam at the top gave way, sending Fritos flying everywhere, high and far, like confetti shot from a cannon. A few Fritos even got caught in the long florescent light fixtures high overhead that looked like ice-cube trays turned upside-down.

 

In my entire life I have yet to meet someone with a better laugh than Dan’s – it was half-cackle and half-emergency-asthma attack – and he never used it more enthusiastically than at that very moment.

 

Adam, however, was no laughing matter. I cannot tell you how many times I was lunch-jacked by him on my walk to school, though an estimate of two dozen might be on the shy side.

 

The first couple times Adam confronted me, I tried freezing in my tracks and commanding him to stop. This was as pointless as asking a mugger to put his gun away and leave nicely. The best thing to do was drop your lunch and run before Adam knocked you over while taking it. Trying to outrun Adam from the get-go was futile.

 

            You might think my bologna sandwich and Ho-Ho’s were safe inside my metal Batman lunchbox. You would be wrong. Somehow he managed to unlatch it. I reckon Adam could have cracked open a bank safe if there were Ho-Ho’s inside.

 

            Even kids who did not have to walk or ride their bikes past Adam’s house on the way to school were not safe from his lunch-jackings. Like a hungry dragon, if Adam was not sufficiently fed he came looking for villagers.

 

Adam routinely got loose and roamed a mile to school before the morning bell. At the sight of him the playground would erupt in frenzied terror with screaming kids scattering and fleeing this way and that like frightened beachgoers in the movie “Jaws.”

 

            After each incident, teachers would tally up the casualties and the principal would phone the mom of the family who owned Adam. Mrs. Young would then make, pack and bring the required number of replacement lunches.

 

            To be honest, except for the trauma of it, having your lunch stolen by Adam actually was not so bad – it was sort of a badge of honor. Plus, Mrs. Young packed homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out in September and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.