August 17th, 2018—Invoking winter may seem like an odd place to start an essay on summer but that is where I’m going to start. Using winter as a metaphor; what were your most challenging moments as a teacher? When do you feel least connected to your calling? How would you describe the days when it feels like the warmth of connection to your content, your students, and your personal integrity as a teacher is just a distant memory? Now that you are thinking of the winter of your teaching I invite you to consider what aspects of summer do you roll around in with joy? Remembering winter has a way of naming and attending to the elements of summer you are most attracted to. To be clear what I’m proposing is that all teachers experience both winters and summers in their teaching. In fact most teachers spend more time in winter than in the summer of their teaching because most teachers are overly critical of their teaching. This is why in the midst of the season of summer it can be helpful to reflect on and incorporate into your teacher being the metaphorical elements of summer that are experienced as abundance and fruition.
I have experienced a prolonged winter in my teaching and leadership this past year. I felt more off my game than on it far too many times. But now that summer is here and I’m finding great reward in paying close attention to the fruits of my winter-labor and acknowledging my willingness to teach and lead with fidelity despite the potential for institutional-frostbite. Summer provides me the opportunity to let go of old fears, self-imposed limitations, unproductive feelings, to breathe deeply, take note of my successes, and begin living into the next season of my professional journey. It feels empowering to teach from a sense of summer agency and boundless potential, instead of holding my teacher self in the isolating constraints of winter.
One poem that guides my summer reflections is Marge Piercy’s, Seven of Pentacles. The following line is particularly rich with connections between the working life of a professional and the rewards of gardening: “for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.” I hear in her words an invitation to consciously tend to the work, the winter struggles, because that is what teachers do. And I also hear Piercy’s reminder of the importance of taking time to gather in the benefits of work well-done; winter and summer are partners not antagonists in the work I do. This is particularly the case in education where the norm is to focus, almost exclusively, on what is ineffective, below standard, or inconsistent with reform protocols. But as Piercy suggests it is equally valuable and worthy to ask; what are you hoping to harvest this summer from the long season of tending to your work? Who are the beneficiaries of the excess production from your labor?
I find that stories of teaching are helpful at centering my inner teacher/leader on a learning I need to incorporate into my teaching. Let me offer a story that combines winter and summer themes in new ways with direct application to my personal and professional journey. One recent summer I was riding a bus to the airport and as we approached the terminal the bus driver pointed out a 26 foot tall, 7 ton statue of the Egyptian god Anubis. The statue was advertisement for the King Tut exhibit coming to my local museum that summer. As we drove past Anubis, standing quietly at attention and gazing toward the terminal, the driver commented how odd it seemed to pick the god of death as the symbol for the exhibit. And that it seemed even more ironic and puzzling to install Anubis outside an airport terminal where the success of summer vacations was contingent on safe departures and return flights.
I had to agree with the bus driver that the statue was an intriguing visual paradox. Anubis (the guardian of the portal of death) facing the airport terminal (the portal to fun, sun, and vacations); metaphorical images of winter and summer in tension. Symbolically the statue of Anubis was very compelling, standing with grace and power, staff in hand, patiently waiting for the earth to tilt away from the sun and toward winter, his season of death. I remember Anubis less as a threatening presence ready to overturn the natural order of things, a well-deserved summer vacation. Instead, he represented an affirmation of the precious but transient qualities of summer. Anubis was my wise and attentive advisor reminding me to fully live the gifts of summer, to not squander the blessings. I’m confident that if I use the fullness of summer’s rest and renewal I know that I will be moving in professional directions that are consistent with the gifts of my inner teacher/leader. And I also know that if I get too complacent in the drowsy, fulfilling nature of summer and forget to take stock of my learnings, I can always drive to the airport where Anubis will remind me of the importance of gleaning all of my summer harvest. Because as Mary Oliver writes in her poem The Summer Day: “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” What are you planning on doing with your one wild and precious summer?
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