“I am” is a Full Sentence
We’ve only been travelling for two weeks, but the time feels more elonaged and dimentional than that, like a delicious section of taffy - folded, stretched and streaked with vibrant color. Maybe it’s because everything is new. Just driving down the left side of the impossibly narrow roads with an unfolding view of stone hedges, grazing ponies and the color green no filter could fabricate is enough to claim a day full and rich with new experience.
Bermuda (aka Bermudiful) came and went quickly, as we leaned heavily onto family for our first abroad “home”, for maritime entertainment (thank you Justin and girls!), for support in establishing a new routine (thank you Nicolle!) and for deep familial connection as my brother and I flew back to central US to join the rest of the family for our uncle’s funeral.
Sunrise at my brother’s house in Bermuda
In Ireland, we’ve settled into our worldschooling schedule. School takes on a new appearance and flavor every day. The classrooms are vast: a midevil castle, the shoreline of the beach, an old fishing boat, a window seat of the local coffee shop, a pasture of sheep, on top of a mountain, and as of late, the local pub, where all wisdom can be found in the bottom of a Guiness pint.
Poetry was yesterday’s scholastic focus. We drove to Connemara National Park and listened to Poetry Unbound’s episode on the Poem “What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade” by Brad Aaron Modlin, and hosted by Irishman Pádraig Ó Tuama. Please give yourself the gift of listening to it!
In the poem, the 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Nelson, instructs how to not squirm for sound when all you hear are your own thoughts, how to remember the voice of your grandfather, how to believe the house you wake in is your home, and even (quite comically) how to chant Psalms during cigarette breaks. She also instructs, in an English lesson, that “I am” is a full sentence.
Importantly, the poet and the reader all seemed to have been absent from school the day Mrs. Nelson taught these lessons. It makes me question the scale of importance we assign to what and how we teach our children, especially now that Eric and I have taken up the profession of 3rd and 6th grade teachers.
We arrived at Connemara National Park and began our long ascent up Diamond Hill. We each created a Haiku as we hiked and proclaimed our our little verses from the summit. We practiced spitting into vs. against the wind, removed a tick from Grace’s arm after she’d snuggled with the rich soil and lush green grass, played the “I’m going on a round-the-world trip” A-Z hiking game, and stood together in awe before this breathtaking slice of the world. After we descended, we teeter-tottered at the playground alongside grazing sheep because, aparently, that is normal in Ireland!
We listened to the poem again as we drove to a seaside village for a hearty supper and the day seemed to conclude all by itself. Although we had only scratched the surface of Poetry 101, we had also been sitting attentively in Mrs. Nelson’s 4th grade class and went to sleep all the more educated.
