Captured Fireflies
As a little girl, I used to believe there was something magical about fireflies. We didn’t have them in Oregon, but during the summers when I visited my grandparent’s farm in Arkansas, I loved to go out in the evening to catch them and my deepest wish was to take a jar full of them home with me. However, I learned very quickly that if you kept them in a jar too long, they didn’t live... so I had to content myself simply playing catch and release!
Today I was searching for something in an old file folder and the word fireflies caught my eye – and according to the date on the front, it was in a handout I’d collected back in 2001. Flashing back to the many hot summer nights I had spent chasing fireflies, I pulled it out to read – and was stunned that something so wonderfully written had been hiding in my file all these years without my having really noticed it.
Wanting to know if there was a “rest of the story” I did a bit of Internet research and found that yes indeed, there was more to the story. Steinbeck wrote the essay in 1955 -- in part as a response to his 11-year old son’s question of “How much longer do I have to go to school?” The teacher described was a high school science and math teacher who was eventually fired because she wasn’t teaching the “fundamentals” of math and science.
I’m sure one could debate all day long on whether the teacher should have been fired or not, but instead, think of the tremendous impact this teacher had in a short period of time. Her legacy lives on thorough the life of Steinbeck and in the lives of those that were influenced by him. I read a proverb recently that said that if you lead a meaningful life, you will never die. Instead, you will break into 1,000 pieces and each piece will stay alive in the people whose lives you’ve touched along the way. As school leaders, we are in the position of touching thousands and thousands of lives along the way – so ask yourself, what type of legacy are you leaving behind?
Today I was searching for something in an old file folder and the word fireflies caught my eye – and according to the date on the front, it was in a handout I’d collected back in 2001. Flashing back to the many hot summer nights I had spent chasing fireflies, I pulled it out to read – and was stunned that something so wonderfully written had been hiding in my file all these years without my having really noticed it.
Like Captured Fireflies
In her classroom our speculations ranged the world.
She aroused us to book waving discussions.
Every morning we came to her carrying new truths, new facts, new ideas
Cupped and sheltered in our hands like captured fireflies.
When she went away a sadness came over us,
But the light did not go out.
She left her signature upon us
The literature of the teacher who writes on children’s minds.
I’ve had many teachers who taught us soon forgotten things,
But only a few like her who created in me a new thing a new attitude, a new hunger.
I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of that teacher.
What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.
John SteinbeckIn her classroom our speculations ranged the world.
She aroused us to book waving discussions.
Every morning we came to her carrying new truths, new facts, new ideas
Cupped and sheltered in our hands like captured fireflies.
When she went away a sadness came over us,
But the light did not go out.
She left her signature upon us
The literature of the teacher who writes on children’s minds.
I’ve had many teachers who taught us soon forgotten things,
But only a few like her who created in me a new thing a new attitude, a new hunger.
I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of that teacher.
What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.
Wanting to know if there was a “rest of the story” I did a bit of Internet research and found that yes indeed, there was more to the story. Steinbeck wrote the essay in 1955 -- in part as a response to his 11-year old son’s question of “How much longer do I have to go to school?” The teacher described was a high school science and math teacher who was eventually fired because she wasn’t teaching the “fundamentals” of math and science.
I’m sure one could debate all day long on whether the teacher should have been fired or not, but instead, think of the tremendous impact this teacher had in a short period of time. Her legacy lives on thorough the life of Steinbeck and in the lives of those that were influenced by him. I read a proverb recently that said that if you lead a meaningful life, you will never die. Instead, you will break into 1,000 pieces and each piece will stay alive in the people whose lives you’ve touched along the way. As school leaders, we are in the position of touching thousands and thousands of lives along the way – so ask yourself, what type of legacy are you leaving behind?
Comments
In 1928 Rabindranath Tagore wrote a book entitled "Fireflies" that included his thoughts. One read:
"The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time, unobscured by the dust of history."
The magic of fireflies can be found everyday in every middle school.
Posted by: Mike Curran | February 21, 2008 02:09 PM