Great writing should not put you to sleep!

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control, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, security, teacher, words, writing

My sister’s cats sleeping together!

I recently learned of a podcast that is pretty funny and useful for settling down. It is called Sleep With Me  (https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/.) There are hundreds of episodes and it is designed to help people fall asleep by telling really boring stories. These are “bedtime stories to help grown ups fall asleep in the deep dark night.”

The one I listened to was called “Baked Beans: The Adventures of Mr. Triangle and Isosceles.” A town of math-appreciating people will see a show that they must pay for with cans of baked beans, but there is trouble when it is realized that the wagon scheduled to carry all the cans of baked beans cannot stand the load. This story, told by a man who drolls on and on, often stumbling around for words and deftly emphasizing little parts of speech that make you stop and question what you just heard, breaks all the rules of writing by never getting to the point, using mindless dialogue, reiterating points and leaning on cliches.

The other one I heard was called something like “20 Steps to Self-Skin Care” and the first ten minutes were devoted to applying one’s fingertips to the face very deliberately and specifically in order to execute a light massage he called “running through Strawberry Fields.” It’s hilarious and relaxing and soporific.

I am planning on sharing this with the students in the Creative Writing class come Fall because it really drives home the idea that good writing should not put one to sleep.

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Believing in yourself is half the battle

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being yourself, change, control, dreams coming true, express feelings, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, natural talent, play, teacher, trust

I’ve heard that creative people are creative in multiple ways and so we should not be surprised to find that Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan also paint pictures. But when you are struggling to be the artist you imagine yourself to be, like me, writing a memoir and telling a story I very much want to share, finding that I have hidden talents is confirmational.

In cleaning out an old trunk in the spare bedroom I came upon this drawing I made when I was sixteen. I’d forgotten that I once believed myself capable of such creations because honestly, right now, I can barely play Pictionary. But possibly if I renewed that notion that I can draw and I put my mind to it, I might win a few rounds.

This sketch is the result of the one drawing class I had in high school, with Robin Burkhardt, who insisted it was about taking the time and seeing clearly. And voila, she was kind of correct! This Bonwit Teller department store ad is a direct mimic of one I saw in the newspaper at the time. The coloring-outside-the-lines I allow occasionally suggests a little artsyness!

Believing in yourself is half the battle.

 

Hippocamp 2018 Writer’s Conference thrilled me

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being yourself, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, teacher, writing

This year’s creative nonfiction writer’s conference, Hippocamp 2018, in Lancaster, PA was wonderful. I was particularly delighted with two contacts I made, both offering future collaboration on projects I am thrilled about. This doesn’t even cover the many other writers I met who were fun, inspiring, and helpful, the great speakers, and finding some wonderful books for sale at the book table.

One of the notable speakers was Lisa Romeo, who gave a talk titled, “Reconstruction: Transforming Essays into a Narrative Memoir Manuscript.” I’ve attended her workshops before and always, she had plenty of very useful information to share. This year’s topic, well it is precisely what I need to know right now: how to use what I have already written to recraft the story I want to tell. After the talk I spoke with her further, then ended up at a lunch table with her later in the day. We hit it off so well that she asked me to write a guest blog post for her blog, Lisa Romeo Writes (http://lisaromeo.blogspot.com/) about my job as a theme reader at the local high school. I am thrilled to tell people about the cool job I get to do as a writing coach to young people, that also supports my own interest in writing.

The second wonderful encounter I had was with Alexander Monelli who held a session titled, “Call the Doc: How Documentary Filmaking Can Help Creative Writing.” Well, I love documentaries, so sitting in a class where we discussed their structure was fascinating. It was actually a bit frustrating, though, because the instructor kept stopping the video to make a point about how the narrative was developed just as the story was most compelling! Got to watch those online to see how they end up!  (https://www.monellifilms.com/) During the course of a Q&A I realized he might be the perfect person to talk to about producing a short book trailer for my memoir. My book proposal, which goes to various editors, promises that I will put a book trailer on my website once the book is published. Yikes! What was I thinking! No problem, Alex told me, he’d be willing to work with me to put it together. Yay! This story will be continued…

Reading with kids is a joy

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being yourself, Jane Butler, listening, reading, second grade, teacher

Today I started volunteering at a local elementary school, reading for thirty minutes separately with two second graders. I’ll be going every week throughout the school year to be their personal cheerleader in reading.

We had a lot of fun because discovering the story together, was a delight. Even though I know the story already, and even though I read it twice in one hour, it was a special experience each time. Each of the kids saw different parts of the story as significant and each was excited by different parts.

The little girl I read with was ridiculously cute, asking me when I would be coming back. She was clearly keeping tabs on me, calling out as she left, “See you next Thursday!”

If you give a student a choice, you have to honor his choice

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being yourself, Jane Butler, listening, teacher, writing

I am mighty frustrated today by my interactions with my Goth student friend in second period at the high school. My charge today, from the teacher I work with, was to help this gentleman get his essay accomplished since he’d missed a lot of school due to a suspension he fulfilled much of last week.

He wasn’t having it though. No, no interest in working on the essay. His preference, which is the case most days, is to sleep during class. The three adults in the room often, in turn, urge him to wake up. We hand him pens to write with, a book to read, the outline of the essay that was due last week. The other students are working independently, revising their essays, reading the next text or completing a study guide. I offer my help to them, too.

But when I suggest to my Goth student that he and I work on the essay, he says he’d rather read. I say I’d rather write. He says he’d rather read. Okay, I say, read it is. But I feel the pressure from the teacher who asked me to help him get the essay accomplished. I feel the pressure from the student who legitimately chooses to read instead. After all, the entire class is given the same choice, do one of the three tasks at hand: essay, read, study guide.

And he did read, a bit. He read and he dozed, and he read some more.

It’s never a good idea to get in a battle of wills with a student. It is his choice to fail the class. I cannot make him do anything, I can only offer my support. When class is done the teacher, the aide, and me, despite our frustration, appreciate that he did some reading today.

In the end, I gather the spirit of what is supposed to happen here and tell him that maybe tomorrow we can work on the essay together.

He says, yeah, maybe tomorrow.

Guess what, I was thinking about you

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being yourself, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, teacher, writing

Funny thing happened today in English class. My Goth friend, who earlier this week literally needed to be woken up from a sound sleep, suddenly was acting oddly interested. I hadn’t planned on it but I told him I’d been thinking about him outside of class. I’d been talking about him to a friend, I told him, for no reason other than that he is a standout in class for having fallen asleep so often.

Now normally all I’ve ever seen of this guy is the crown of his head, and a glimpse of his pale skin glancing past his long black hair. He’s usually hunched over and usually withdrawn, and usually doesn’t talk,

I guess I felt so encouraged with him looking directly at me, in response to the revelation that I’d been thinking about him out of class, that I just kept going. I told him the whole story of my friend, the person I’d told about my sleeping Goth student. I guess I told them both about each other, actually. And I didn’t hold back. My friend, I told my student, surprised me by telling me about how he too once was an army boot and flak jacket wearing teen who was headed down the wrong path, getting arrested and doing drugs, not that I presumed to know what my Goth friend did outside of class.  But this had in hindsight been a kind of reaction to the long slow painful dismantling of his family over the course of many years. Turns out his dad left the family and his mom was so deeply grief-stricken as to appear mentally ill, and it dragged out for ten years before it felt like it ended.

Checking out, getting into trouble, these were ways to carry on in the face of disaster. My friend said he landed in a foster care situation and then his father did something unusual for fathers who leave their kids, he came back and got his wayward son into boarding school. From there he made it to college and onto a path that was healthier. I told all this to my student in a long exposition I hadn’t planned, and so I laughed at how us adults, this friend of mine and me too, project our experiences and understanding onto others. How he had suggested that maybe my Goth student was like him, reacting to issues at home. I had said, who knows, maybe.

By now my Goth student was quite present with me. I wrapped up my monologue and explained about the power of words and why we bother with the writing assignment before us. About how it’s hard to let kids know the value of learning, and how to communicate through writing, but this assignment is, unfortunately, how we do it. I told him no matter how crappy life is or what you do or do not have, communicating with words can get you all kinds of chances – jobs, college entrance, scholarships, girls, apologies, everything. So let’s humor the system, I proposed, and work on this essay together.

That’s when all of a sudden, he started talking, stringing whole sentences together, and looking right at me.

Letting kids lead the way

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being yourself, Jane Butler, joy, piano lessons, teacher

Last night one of my piano students, my very youngest and most wiggly, played his piano piece entirely with his nose! He did not get tired of how hard it was, apparently finding it preferable to struggling through the difficult fingering I was looking for. His nose is tiny, too! He is a little guy with a little nose, but he persevered. I allowed it because it was the most focus I’d gotten out of him the entire lesson, and he was hitting the right keys. He tends to dash around the keyboard playing whatever he’s learned, showing off and enjoying the thrill of knowing what to do with all those eighty-eight keys. Granted, it is pretty basic stuff since he’s only had about five lessons so far, but I see the joy in his actions and know he is having a great time. So once he was done playing Mississippi Hot Dog with his nose, I proposed we try it again, this time with the right hand.

He conceded, but at the end of that ordeal he laid his head down across middle C and told me he was really tired.

I bet!

Anybody in there?

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Jane Butler, relationship, teacher

In English class this week the kids have been tough to engage. They politely but temporarily put away their cellphone games or tentatively take out just one earphone of their iPods when I seem to want to talk to them, or directly ask if they’d be up for working with me undistracted, but really that is a lot to expect of me since I need to know English, too, not just child psychology. One young man barely speaks when I meet with him, and he keeps his Goth persona, grunting and avoiding eye contact consistently. He’s always tired because of the job he works late at night, but I can’t make exceptions, we have to do the work.

Not too long ago I sent my daughter into the QuickShop to pick up two gallons of milk for our household. She came back with the milk and exactly two dollars which I knew wasn’t the correct change. I’d nearly missed it myself recently when one of those change contraptions that has a chute directly off of the cash register delivered precisely the correct coinage while the cashier handed over the bills after my purchase. I told my girl that the only reason I knew about all this was because I’d heard the clinking of coins cleverly hidden between the gum displays and the latest candy trends on the counter top and realized it was for me. Cool, but so easily overlooked.

So today just after buying my two gallons of milk I looked over and was surprised to see my Goth friend standing at the counter making his own purchase. I heard his coins clattering down the chute to the cup. “Don’t forget your change,” I called pointing at the coins as I headed out the door.

I guess I caught him off guard or was out of context or something because he broke character, looked right at me and smiled, and seemed surprised and glad about finding his money.

An unconventional piano concert

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being yourself, Jane Butler, piano recital, teacher

Last night my living room was packed with kids and their parents, all smiling, all happy to be there, and all ready to hear the kids share their music. It started out the way you might think, rather serious and quiet and nerve-wrackingly formal! I explained about putting names in a hat and how anyone, student of mine or not, was welcome to play piano, whatever the caliber. I asked for a volunteer to go first, a hand shot up and we were off. After she’d played she picked a name from the basket and my newest little student came up. He has had two lessons yet sat down to play “The Pecking Hen”, a challenging exercise in hitting each white key in succession all the way down the keyboard. The crowd went wild.

Besides the prepared pieces of my students, a friend of a student, a nine-year old girl who doesn’t take piano lessons anywhere got up and played a one-finger rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. A mom and her daughter did “Heart and Soul” and called over to me after quite a few rounds, “How do we stop??” Kids came up in twos and played two different songs at the same time as a ‘duet’ because we let them.

It was an unconventional concert but it was low pressure and high fun. My student who declined to participate last year agreed reluctantly this year on the strength of the stories of last time, and ended up being one of the ones to return to the piano two more times to show what she could do. Her parents and I were delighted to see that she stretched herself by playing a piece she hadn’t planned on. The setting was right for risking it. The praise and recognition were genuine and supportive and easy to get if you stepped up to the piano and tried something new. One girl even suggested she play “Over the River and Through the Woods” while others sang, so an impromptu choir emerged to cap off the evening.

What a great night. What a fulfilling experience to teach kids to play music and then have them share it with the rest of us just for the fun of it. Low pressure, high fun. Thanks everybody.

A six-year old’s first impression

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being yourself, express feelings, Jane Butler, piano lessons, relationship, teacher, trust

The mother of one of my piano students came to me last week and asked if we might start her six-year old boy on lessons on a trial basis. We’d do a fifteen-minute lesson and see how he took to it. After all, he’d been asking for lessons and copying his sister for weeks now.

So, after his sister’s lesson I sat down with him at the piano and we started. All we do at the first lesson is touch every key and name it, spell some words on the keys like DAD and CAB, and then I usually do some silly quizzes about which hand is which and which finger is which. It gives us a chance to get to know one another and to introduce the piano, and it is easy.

In just fifteen minutes, I can decide whether the student is ready and able to take lessons. For instance, this little boy stayed focused and engaged with the process the whole time. He didn’t get frustrated, and he did know which hand was which. It’s hard to teach kids piano if they are unsure which is the left hand or if they keep looking back at their mom to see if they are getting the right answers. But he was willing to trust in the process and allowed a fifteen-minute relationship with me all for the sake of learning piano. They say first impressions are real so I am counting on it, and I feel this guy is ready.

The crazy thing about this experience is what he did next because it is a reminder that kids are just as capable as adults of sizing up the situation. His first impression is valid, too. After we were finished and I told him he’d done a good job, he ran right over to his mother. I got a perfect look at his back as he spoke to her.  In a clear and loud voice, as if I couldn’t hear him he told her, “I want piano lessons.”

Kids are great. They know how they feel. And there is such a short line between how they feel and what they say without a lot of smoke and distraction in-between, that if the adults in their lives are good stewards of that we can trust them to be honest with us for a long time.