Making a difference October 22, 2007

Musing of a teacher

When one day
They leave the gates of the school
Will they be ready
To face the world
To contribute
To receive
To make a difference?

Will Í have made a difference?

© Frumteacher

PS. Painting: Musing on the future by George Smith (1874)

‘Fall, leaves, fall’ October 19, 2007

‘Fall, leaves, fall’

Fall, leaves, fall;

die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Emily Jane Brontë

Last night, a friend came over for dinner. We studied together in university and hadn’t seen each other for quite some time. It was nice to see how we were both ‘adults’ now in stead of students. Grown-ups with jobs and responsibilities. For desert I served this oatmeal apple crisp, a real fall recipe and very easy to make.

Oatmeal apple crisp

1,5 pounds Cortland apples

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

3/4 cup margarine, softened

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×8-inch baking pan.

Peel, core and slice apples; place in pan. Mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger in a bowl.

Mix in margarine until coarse crumbs form. Stir in oats and walnuts. Sprinkle over apples.

Bake for 35 minutes until apples are tender and crumb topping is cris. Serve warm or cool.

Yields 6-8 servings.

Teacher Tide September 11, 2007

Teacher Tide

The beauty of the sea
How easy to forget
That this endless mass of water
Seemingly still
Is really perpetually moving
Ebb
Flood
Ebb
Flood

How hard to realize
That every teacher
No matter how inspired
Depends on this coming and going
Of the waves in his classroom
Ebb
Flood
Ebb
Flood

Shmuel haNagid March 14, 2007

This week I will be teaching jewish poetry from medieval Spain. During the tenth centuries, beautiful Hebrew and Arabic poems have been written by great learned men, poets such as Shlomo Ibn Gvirol and Shmuel haNagid (or Shmuel Ibn Nagrela). The poem ‘the ruined citadel’ reminded me somewhat of ‘Ozymandias’ which I posted some time ago.

THE RUINED CITADEL~ by Shmuel haNagid

I billeted a strong force overnight in a citadel laid waste in former days by other generals.

There we slept upon its back and flanks, while under us its landlords slept.

And I said to my heart:

Where are the many people who once lived here?

Where are the builders and vandals, the rulers and paupers, the slaves and masters?

Where are the begetters and the bereaved,

the fathers and the sons, the mourners and the bridegrooms?

And where are the many people born after the others had died,

in days gone by, after other days and years?

Once they lodged upon the earth;

now they are lodged within it.

They passed from their palaces to the grave,

from pleasant courts to dust.

Ozymandias January 29, 2007

Inspired by the poetry contest in which Thursday is participating, I started thinking about my favorite English poem. Apart from the poetry of the Great War poets, there is one poem which struck me at the moment I learned it in high school. I remember thinking about it for days after that class was over. Maybe that poem inspired me to study history. I forgot its title and (shame!) the name of its poet, but thanks to Google I found it:

Ozymandias ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Thanks to Google (again) I found out that one of Shelley’s friends, the poet Horace Smith, published a quite similar poem only one month later. The idea is the same, so is the name of the oriental king, but somehow it doesn’t effect the reader in the same way.