IT dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Emily Dickinson
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
I’m going to get a little bit personal with this blog: I have never had so many disinterested classes of English students in my life as I have this spring semester. Is there something in the water? Do teaching strategies that worked the last few years no longer hold interest?
I feel like the speaker in this poem every time I prepare a classroom activity, or assign a short story or poem, or walk into class. I’m ready to have a great day, and then comes the crash. Nobody wants to do the activity, very few students bothered to bring in the assignment, and there are so many absences I begin to wonder if the actual bubonic plague has descended upon my students.
And I feel like it’s my fault, too, just as the speaker feels that it’s her own fault that the plates have cracked. Maybe if I’d tried another activity, or assigned a different reading. Maybe if I were a different teacher entirely. If I had a better personality. If my students liked me more. If, if, if.
As with most Emily Dickinson poems, I don’t have an easy answer. If the speaker hadn’t placed that metaphorical plate on her metaphorical high shelf, she wouldn’t have metaphorical shards to sweep. If I didn’t care so much whether my students find learning my classes enjoyable, I guess I wouldn’t be so upset when they’re obviously Just Not That Into It.
Maybe the trick is not that we shouldn’t collect the breakable plates. The speaker isn’t suddenly switching to Corelle. The trick is to find that balance, that correct shelf, that place for everything (and everything in its place): that allows us to not ward off breaking entirely, but give fragile things their best chance.
The Emily Project 