Joe Polis and Langston Hughes

 As I enter my 30th year of teaching, I am thankful for Summer "Vacation"...it gives me an opportunity to reflect on the previous year, read and research countless books, poems, etc. related to U.S. History, ponder how I will challenge my students to think critically and pursue truth on a deeper level in 2014-15, and once again ask myself the question, "why are you teaching?"

To help answer this question, I want to share with you 2 examples from my summer reading that may help me articulate why I teach...and why ultimately, we are all students.

 Joe Polis

Example #1: Joe Polis was a Penobscot Indian who helped guide Henry David Thoreau through the "wilderness" of Maine while Thoreau was writing "The Maine Woods". A classic book of essays that focused on Native American culture in the 1840's. When Thoreau pondered his relation to Polis he wrote,

"I told him that in this voyage I would tell him all I knew,

and he should tell me all he knew."

The essays are an intriguing look into the metamorphosis of Thoreau's thinking in regard to Native Culture...although in my opinion, Thoreau never quite gets to the point of realizing that "the wilderness" he describes is actually "the home and wonderful reality" of the Native Americans (but, I digress).

Langston Hughes

Example #2: The great poet, Langston Hughes shares a poem he published in 1949 (100 years after Thoreau!) that further helps illustrate "why I teach"..."Theme for English B".  

I believe Hughes would've greatly "challenged" Thoreau to a deeper level of understanding.

  

THEME FOR ENGLISH B

 
 The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page: It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free. 

This is my page for English B. 

Henry David Thoreau

During his voyage, Thoreau writes...

"I have much to learn of the Indian..."

Oh, we have much to learn of and from each other!!!

And that is "why I teach".