Her Wiseness Martha Graham

I just got back from my second Inner Resilience workshop, I feel like I have so much to say...

Perhaps it is best to start with someone else's words?

A Message from Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique.

If you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is;
nor how valuable it is;
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction;
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes is more alive than the others.

I feel like we, as teachers, are forced to spend SO much time "determining how good it is" (especially in report card season!) and comparing one with the other and telling the kids what of theirs is valuable and what is not.
(Even despite all the emphasis on DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION! they all end up taking the same STANDARDIZED TEST in the end... sort of makes all that differentiation talk sound a bit disingenuous, no? Not to mention how kids who have spoken English for one year are graded on the same scales as those that have spoken nothing but English for their whole lives...)

I think the current trend in education views teaching as scientific, empirical, formulaic... say the right words in the right order at the right time, input the right data into the program, adjust the controls, and get the output that you damn well expect and paid good money for!

But I think anyone who's ever tried teaching (or even witnessed it) would agree it's not like that. The processes of teaching and learning are very irregular and amorphous, and no one (not even experts like Doug Lemov, who was featured in this weekend's thought-provoking New York Times magazine article) seems to be quite able to put their finger on what it is that makes a Good Teacher.

In truth, I feel it is just as much art as it is science, if not more so. And that is where we, as teachers, get to connect to Martha Graham and her cohort... that unattainable-ness, the drive, the never-endingness... the "divine dissatisfaction" and "blessed unrest that keeps us marching" applies, too, to my daily project, that Flow of the Day that I am incessantly crafting and re-shaping and perfecting and collapsing... Like art, teaching is never DONE, there is never a finish line (only checkpoints, but as soon as you reach one, new ones appear on the horizon). It is never perfected, nor, I suppose, should it be... like art, it is about striving, it is about imagining it always a new and better way, finding the right balance or seeing something there you never saw before, imagining it again anew and, like Martha, keeping on marching in hopes of becoming more alive than you have been before.


The other part that spoke to me was the part about not having to believe in yourself or your work, but rather, trusting the urges and motivations that brought you there.

There are, sadly but truly, so many occassions during the course of my workweek where I think to myself, wow, this is really stupid, or what a dumb way to waste everybody's time! But rather than dwelling on the more irksome details of the myriad of daily duties, I think an important surival skill is forgetting all the bullshit and letting it roll off your back, and instead remembering why you're there... the urge to try and DO something, dammit, and the motivating force of the kids, with their big eyes, looking up at you expectantly, trusting you with both the pretty and gritty daily details of their lives.