POST by LIZ: Capsized

Sitting in the Pearson/Scotts Foresman workshop for English teachers, the instructor of the session enthusiastically read to us a children´s story about a chap who owned a boat. In her chirpy, I-once-was-an-elementary-teacher-but-now-I´m-the-guru-teacher-of-teachers´ voice, she read the children´s genre literature to us.

The owner of the boat planned to travel to the other side of the lake – as he was about to set sail, an animal came along and asked if he could come too, “Sure” came the reply, and the animal climbed into the boat.

The man was about to set sail with his newly made friend, when more animals came; the man permitted more and more animals into his boat. 

Very soon the boat was overflowing, yet the man could not turn the animals away and kept accepting them to join him in his boat, stating that they could always make room for one more. The boat swayed, and tilted, then suddenly capsized. All the animals and the man fell into the water and they laughed and laughed and laughed.  

She closed the book, pushed her spectacles up, cocked her head to one side, and moved her lips into a wry smile, “Isn´t this a wonderful story! I always read this to children," she sighed. Now, how can we embolden children to get more depth out of this story? How can we encourage them to connect the text to text, then text to self?” 

She continued to rhetorically quiz us as she paced around the room (and yes, I did pick up that her pacing was a practical example of a method she taught us in our morning session workshop, “Methods on How to Engage Students in the Classroom”).

She came to a halt.  “What qualities did the man possess?” she asked, then opened up her hands to us as an indicator she had finished with the rhetorical questioning and now wanted participation (Another theory practically utilised).

The first hand shot up.  The instructor´s slight nod prompted the hand raiser to respond, “He was friendly.” 

“Yes – but what specific information from the story could you use to back up your point?” was her reply. 

“Well, he invited others to join him,” 

“Good, Good” she cooed.   

Another hand shot up. Before I could raise my water bottle to my lips, there had been a range of responses, all stating that the man displayed a variety of good and kind qualities.

I was sitting three rows back from where the instructor was positioned and thought, “Geez, I hope she doesn´t call on me, coz I think the man´s stupid!” and I did truly think that.  I mean, he didn´t get to accomplish his task of getting to the other side of the lake because of his foolish, unwise decisions to continue to accept animals onto his boat, despite the warning signs of rocking and tilting. And while the conversation thrived on how good and kind the man was, I decided then and there that I would NEVER read such an irresponsible story to any student or child of mine!

I often think back to this moment as I live my day-to-day life.

Today, we live in a five bedroom house, and have made the laundry room into a bedroom for Sezni.  We raised his bed to the ceiling with tires acting as a ladder (which reminds me of something they had rigged up at Bristol Zoo for the monkey´s) We use the floor space of his bedroom to place the school´s food storage boxes.

We also have a casita which has two bedrooms, and we turned the small shed into another bedroom, which hosts a home-made wooden bunk-bed.

To date, we now have six official Briens, Billy, Brian and Oliver who sleep inside the main house.  We also house eight teenage boys and occasionally a few of the neighborhood lads. Our full house reminds me of the man and his boat!

At times, I feel the swaying and tilting – and other times it feels like everything has capsized, but I can now finally see why the man and his passengers laughed and laughed and laughed.   

So many times in my life I have focused too much on getting to the final destination, yet I´m seeing now that it´s more about the NOW moments and relationships that we form and build than it is about getting to the end of our journey. 

In the words of Ossie Chambers, “It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God…What men call training and preparation, God calls the end…God´s end is to enable me to see that HE can walk on the chaos of my life just now.  If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present: if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.”