In February we studied Emily Dickinson’s “Water is Taught by Thirst” and Julia Alverez’s “Snow.” Obviously the Alvarez story involves snow, but the image is not as visible in just the title of Dickinson’s poem. On the unit test, I had a mid-level recognition section that comprised of single words and short phrases. One of these was “Snow,” and when I typed it, I had in mind the Alvarez story.

As A-block was taking the test, I was filling out the scantron key. A strange sense of hesitancy hit me when I came across the word “Snow.” Obviously I knew the answer was “Julia Alverez,” but something wasn’t right, and that something was not necessarily only happening in my mind; it was more instinctual, more gut-like, if you will. Since I’ve come to recognize these moments as times that God may be trying to slow me down so I can realize something, I thought about it. Unable to come to any conclusions, I moved on with the test and just asked God to speak to me in a timely manner if I was missing something.

This may sound quirky, perhaps even crazy, but I’ve truly come to trust him and the moments he puts in front of me. I’ve learned that the less I try to control what cannot be controlled, the more likely the scenario I want in the first place plays out. It’s like the created reality study we had in the fall; if Anakin Skywalker had just let go, he would have saved Padme.

God did not let me down. Immediately after the last person turned in the test, one of my pals in A-block came up to me with a joyous expression and air of accomplishment in her movement. She told me that over the weekend she’d thought about the Dickinson poem and the final line about the snow, and she said she’d figured out what it could have meant.

Seems simple, right? But it was not simple for me. As soon as she told me her analysis, besides being thrilled that she’d thought about the poem at home, I was awed by once again being a part of the good Lord’s unbelievably intricate and creative way of communicating with us. I probably shook my head and grinned and hopefully said a silent “thank you” to the God who’d sent me the message. It wasn’t a big deal to most students because the idea of “snow” was more readily connected to the Alvarez story, but there were a few that it was a huge deal to, because they’d marked Dickinson after remembering their teacher jokingly skimming through the final line of the Dickinson poem that read, “Birds, by the Snow.”

I hear some people, especially students, say that I am a deep thinker. You may look at this little story and equate it to my deep thinking. But honestly, and I can tell you this with full authenticity, I really don’t spend that much time thinking. I think (sorry, I had to) it’s a often a waste of time. What I’ve come to realize in my life is that being in constant conversation with God helps to homogenize the little thinking I do do in a far more effective way than what I used to do in my early twenties and much of my teens — turn something over in my mind so much that I end up creating in my life the very confusion and lack of knowing I was trying to avoid. Yes, Our Fathers and Rosaries and Act of Contritions are great and necessary, and I say them all the time; but I really believe it is the personal relationship I’ve developed with Jesus my brother, Mary my mother, and God my father, along with a little collection of saint-pals I occassionally say hello to, that allows me to experience a knowing that goes beyond the mind. It’s a knowing that doesn’t know everything, indeed maybe not anything at all, but it’s a knowing that gives me peace of mind and opens me up to trust when there are no answers to a question.

I think this is what I feel. And I’m pretty sure that young lady was used as a vessel for God’s message to me.

I think.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of The Final Chase and Postmarked Baltimore, which won Honorable Mention in the 2008 New England Book Festival. He teaches American Literature at St. Louis Catholic High School. Website and other blog links can be found at www.thefinalchase.com.

Last week I read Julia Alvarez’s “Snow” for the first time, maybe two nights before we studied it in class. It has stayed with me, especially Sister Zoe’s response to young Yolanda’s mistake with the snow. I think it is such a great story to teach the idea of perspective and the idea that, in some cases, there’s more to people and situations than what meets the eye.

That’s not my favorite part of the story, though. My favorite part is the fact that young Yolanda put a smile on Sister Zoe’s face in a time that was extremely stressful for any American aware of what terrible possibilities awaited us if cooler heads didn’t prevail.

The story reminds me of a class lesson during my third year at St. Louis. We were outside doing an exercise that mimics a philosophy called Transcendentalism, a philosophy I’ve put on the shelf for the last three years. The exercise is to connect with nature, much like we learned with the American Indians, by exaggerating said connection by talking to some part of nature. Yes, an actual conversation. You think I’m weird now? Leaves, grass, ants, tree bark, the sky, anything you could think of became our friend for the day, and the students wrote out a conversation with this new friend. I’d walk around, enjoying being outside myself, watching my students perform the strange task with diligence and enjoyment.

One young man has always stood out, and I made sure to tell him and his classmates how utterly cool it was to see him, for just a moment, completely forget himself and his surroundings. This guy was having the time of his life; he was sitting on the root of a tree, laughing with his ant and actually talking to it. It wasn’t phony; I could tell that because he had the aura of a person that has forgotten he is supposed to censor the child inside. After seeing enough people put on fronts for whatever reason in their lives, you learn what it means when you see the opposite. For that all-authentic instant, I saw that quiet, no nonsense young man as an eight-year-old on the first day of summer vacation. It wasn’t an English assignment anymore for him. It was a moment of freedom, of fun, and he made me smile from ear to ear. I didn’t even need to read his work. Assignment succeeded.

I’ve never forgotten that moment; and when I read Alvarez’s story the other day, it’s the first thing that came to mind. Smiling and laughing are two things I must do every day–and a lot. You have no idea what you do to me when you walk into that classroom and smile. I love when you tell stories and laugh. I love when you allow yourself to just be a kid and  let your hair down and just BE.

We live in a tough world that couldn’t care less if we truly succeed or not. We’ll be knocked down, we’ll be lied to, we’ll be betrayed. There won’t be nearly as many applauses as we deserve. But through it all, I hope you can remember what I’ve taken with me since that day outside five years ago: a little mental photograph of a kid saying cheese to an ant and loving every minute of it.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.

“You can learn alot from a grape.”  ~B. P., Junior class of 2002-03

In our class we have studied the relationship between the individual and the community, both in a general sense and in more specific areas like Puritanism and the American Civil War. The individual is in constant tension between one,  following the norms set by the community, and two, working against them. It is oftentimes an unwieldy task, to spread our wings enough to enjoy our personal liberation while being disciplined enough not to fly too far away so as not to lose the identity of the group.

Two years ago, I experienced something that involves the community and individual, but it wasn’t in the sense that we’ve discussed. After visiting my old high school in the fall of 2006, I decided it was time to go back home to my roots, to give back to a school that had given so much to me. I decided to go back to teach at my alma mater. At the time, it didn’t matter that it would be a huge decrease in pay. It didn’t matter that it would mean I’d have to teach several different classes, including something like 8th grade Science. No negative mattered.

Did I say 8th grade Science?

Such a precipitate decision had been made under the darkness of a cloud that had hung over my head for a long time–for years, in fact. I was in a “situation,” let’s call it, that had fogged every aspect of my life without my even knowing it. I had gotten out of this “situation,” but in my mind only a clean break from the Lou would allow me the fresh slate I needed in life. With no regard for the wild abandon in this decision, I put in my letter of intent to leave St. Louis.

Spring rolled around, right around the time that I’d have to officially sign the contract with the other high school. I’d interviewed and been offered a job already, and now it was just a matter of honoring my promise to interview with another high school I’d been in contact with. It was a mere formality in my mind, but under an honor code I was, and anyway, it didn’t matter. I was bound for Hanson Memorial High School no matter what. I was going to be a Tiger again.

But in the midst of waiting for this interview, something great happened. My classes had started their research papers, grinding away in a workshop that our class will soon experience. Before this particular year, the workshops were productive, but never before had there been more diligence, more quiet, more stellar work on first drafts than there was during this particular workshop. I had no headaches. No problems. No trouble sleeping. Free of the typical distractions, I prayed and prayed consistently, asking God to help me make the right decision. I was a gone pecan in my mind, yes, but as in any time of discernment, I was asking God to close the door on my move back home if that was his will. Whatever his will was, I wanted it to happen, no matter how excited I was about moving back home.

See, class, with the way I invest myself in this gig as a teacher, had there been problems or a lack of production from this class, I don’t think I would have been clear enough in the head to recognize what realization I had one day. It was on a Saturday, and I remember the moment very vividly. I was with my then-girlfriend-now-wife in the car on Nelson St. in front of Wal-Mart, and I looked at her and said, quite plainly, “I don’t have to go anywhere.” She looked at me and waited because she knew I was still praying that I’d make the right decision. I just adjusted my attention to the road again and repeated, “I don’t have to go anywhere. I’m staying.”

I know this may not seem as huge a landmark moment as it is written here, that making a statement like this, much like someone would say the grass is green or you should never eat dirt, isn’t notable enough to find some cosmic connection, but the moment was so sudden and so clear. I sat there puzzled, smiling, wondering to myself how in the heck this “situation” had clouded my judgment to such a degree that the lens through which I looked at even the joys at St. Louis were tinted too. It was like that moment when you take your sunglasses off after your eyes have gotten used to your surroundings with them on: it’s a shock to the system and you have to blink awkwardly, but after a moment you see the world around in such a clearer, more beautiful way.

I have that class to thank for giving me the space to maneuver spiritually and emotionally. They allowed me the room to spread my wings long enough to sniff a dream. They also allowed me the room to realize what I’d be missing back on the ground. When I made my final decision to come back, I thanked each section of the class for what I’ve disclosed here. I’m not sure if they fully understood what I meant back then, but it didn’t make the gratitude any less sincere. It didn’t make them any less special.

I think about last year’s students and this year’s senior retreat that would have never happened. I think about you and the relationships I’ve forged with some of you, the discussions, the laughter, the honest hard work. I may not be a Saint for the rest of my life, but I sure have learned that it’s a heckuva flight, even with–no, especially with, clipped wings.

This is a tough one to write on, I realize. The bottom line, remember, is that you want it to be about you. Find a reason for it to apply, in any facet of your life.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.

The Tipping Point is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell that explores the factors necessary for spreading any social phenomenon. The author’s theory is based on many disparate pieces of evidence in equally disparate facets of life, leading one to assume that his theory has very real credibility. It is the little things,  Gladwell says, that spread a certain energy through any group that makes group-action explode or stay stagnant.

I have found that this principle holds true in the classroom with students. Over the last eight years I have seen very little in the way of middle ground when it comes to projects, tests, even overall grades for a grading term or year. I am happy when the majority of the class does well, but equally disappointed when it doesn’t. I do address in my mind the anomalies that are not in line with the rest of their classmates–whether that be for better or worse, but my real focus is on the group, the phenomenon. What energy was spread? What was the cause behind that energy? If it is a good outcome, I obviously want to alert the students to what has happened in hopes that we can bottle it up, tap into the reservoir next time; on the other hand, a bad outcome creates an opportunity for us to discuss what factors were involved in the class’s struggle and for us to pour out the waste.

It doesn’t take reading The Tipping Point to realize that our interactions with each other create this energy, and, as a result, create the outcome of many individuals’ grades. Create the outcomes of grades, and all of a sudden the group is determining individuals’ weekends, privileges, friendships, and other countless important things in a young person’s life, given the fact that grades can be the major determinent in what many parents will allow their children. What power you young people have! To think that a positive comment from a peer concerning one assignment can spread to a student who, upon hearing it, decides to work hard on it after all. Said student gets a B instead of an F, said student’s parents are happy, said student is allowed to go to that movie with his or her date, they hit it off and share an extraordinary time with one another, and you look back at the timeline of it all and realize that it all started at one point that was tipped by a positive person. It’s The Butterfly Effect minus Ashton Kutcher.

One year the class was going very smoothly. The students had put together a great string of successes as a class, including a thematic test, a vocabulary test, a talent project, a literature presentation, and the midterm exam–all of which had an exorbitantly high number of A’s and B’s . Our next thematic unit arrived, we went through our study in the same intricate way as our last unit, using even more movie clips and enjoying equally good discussions, and the test day came.

I got concerned as soon as some of the students started walking in.

“I heard this test was hard.”

“I heard it was impossible.”

Then the clincher…

“Oh, no, and I studied!”

Now why should a student who studied believe anything else other than that she will do well on the test? She didn’t believe it, though, she admittedly let her nerves take control, and there it was: a D. No, it wasn’t everybody else’s fault. The last thing I want you to be is an individual who blames others. But the fact is that there was an influence, there was a negative impact made. I didn’t need to run the scantrons through the machine to know that we had not succeeded as a class. And I really mean that. Energy is such a powerful thing, and when you feel the negativity in a group, you can predict with relative ease the outcome.

Class average: 73.

I entered the scores into my gradebook and stewed in an uncomfortable mix of anger, disappointment, and love. It is this last one, I think, that keeps me level-headed from year to year, from assignment to assignment, from situation to situation. The next class period I talked to my classes in a manner much like the discussion I had here, minus the particulars and vocabulary associated with the Tipping Point itself. I talked to them about energy, and how there is no way that a class as strong and hard-working, and perhaps most importantly, well-meaning, could want or choose to do that poorly on a test. I talked about the string of successes we’d had, and we talked about the things that were said “out there” that helped make those successes happen. Then I reminded them of some of the things that were said before this past test. Others like the aforementioned girl cited text anxiety once they started hearing the negativity. Some confirmed that the onslaught of negative things “out there” affected their decision to review the night before the test. I quote “out there” in a cynical (sardonic for you, DC) way because “out there” typically means only a few individuals, a few points on the graph. Just a few persons who didn’t know the material and had chosen to say things like “that test was impossible” tipped the balance. Sure, the A students got good grades, but it was the fence-sitters listening to those negative, cancerous comments that made the virus spread. And there you had it: an utter failure as a class.

This goes beyond grades. Grades are simply a means to an end. Young people must always realize what potential we have, not only as individuals, yes, but maybe more importantly as influences on people we don’t even think are listening. Next time there is a test or assignment in any class, the challenge is to realize you are a pivotal point in energy transfer, and even the most trivial thing you say could set the butterfly in motion.

 Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.

I have never been good at writing thank you notes. I did them for my half of the wedding presents my wife and I got, all the while thinking secretly how wonderful it would be if one day I’d come home and she’d tell me they were done. I’d sweep her off her feet and dance with her in the kitchen and give her a five-hour foot massage. I never told her my secret wish, of course, and she never wrote the thank you notes for me. No foot massage for her.

It’s not that I wasn’t thankful. It just got to be so repetitive that I felt like I was being phony. “Thank you for the kind gift. We will definitely make use of this, the fourth blender we’ve gotten. It might be in another thirty years, but trust me, it’ll get used.” I mean, really, how many different ways can you write “thank you” when you’re working on your fourth blender? And what’s more, are you being  phony when you thank that guest for a gift you know you’re giving away to your old college buddy who’s still not married yet? What about the movie DVD of Tommy Boy you already have?

I’m praying to the God of Skinny Punks that, in the end, my little rant may actually have something to do with my story from the classroom today. It just crossed my mind as I started to write.

I go back several years to my third year of teaching, and a comment in a book I came across. The book was on teaching and one point discussed the importance of teaching gratitude to your students. I had struggled with this before I stumbled upon this book because it was a lesson I wanted to convey to my students but never did because I didn’t want to come off as expecting or needing a “thank you” for the things I did. And truly I didn’t. If you go into this gig expecting a bunch of high-fives and thank yous for your labor, you might as well go watch grass grow in Russian Siberia in the middle of December. 

So I’ve read this book and I’m in class and giving a test. As is my way, I thank the students as each brings me his or her test. I thank them because, even now, I still have to wrap my mind around the fact that I am the teacher, and they are the students, and they are taking a test I constructed. The level of trust there is unfathomable, and it’s a credit to the parochial school system and parents that many of the students I teach probably never look at it this way. ”Teach is giving us a test? Whatever. Okay.”

Anyway, I’m saying thank you to each student but none of them is responding, in typical fashion, as I’ve said. It really isn’t a big deal, but I think about the comment in the book I’d just read. I decide to address it to the class.

“I want to address something that I’m not quite sure I need to address, and I don’t feel comfortable addressing it, but I feel pulled to address it with you.”

Clear enough, say the blank stares on their faces.

“The idea of saying ‘thank you’ to people. It is my responsibility to teach gratitude, even though I know that you thank me every day with the hard work you put in.”

I meant that. One of the hardest things about being sincere sometimes is that you see so many other people bull——– other people that you can actually feel like that yourself when you’re giving one of these little talks. You mean everything you’re saying to the fullest, and yet the words themselves are so similar to the bull——– that you wonder if there’s some better way to say it.

So I tell them about this book I read and they were very impressed, let me tell you. I told them about the little comment on gratitude, and there was a general nodding of heads, a simple gesture of respect that told me, “okay, they might not get it now, but I said it, and the seed will be there later if God wants to water it.”

Something didn’t sit right with me, though. I instantly regretted even bringing it up. For five years the memory stayed with me, not necessarily the unease of the regret itself, but the knowledge that it had once been there. What’s more, that I’d never quite been able to finger why it was there in the first place.

Over the holiday break just a week ago, now five years removed from that day, I came to realize that one of the seeds planted was inside me. In my evening prayer book is a prayer that answered my question, the water that finally allowed my seed to sprout. It was titled “Giving in Secret.” It enlightened me, not only on why I felt uncomfortable with my little talk that day, but also why I feel uncomfortable sometimes telling my current students what rewards they’re getting from hard work. Don’t get me wrong, I love giving the rewards because I believe in hard work, but I’ve always rathered the possibility of just doing it and having the students trust me with it. Unfortunately, because life and the people that care for us most often let us down the most, it is necessary for me to share some of the things I’m doing so that they can keep their confidence, keep their faith in the shared vision we have from day one.

“Giving in Secret” goes like this: Why do you give? Have you ever considered that your charity could be a quiet act of worship? Consider being so moved by God’s goodness that you give freely to another–yet give in secret, giving God the glory. You yield what is costly to show that he is important to you. Certainly that pleases God. Imagine what it does to the people who receive your generous gifts. Not knowing the identity of their benefactor affects them. They are beholden to none–but grateful to everyone, especially God. 

It’s the left hand and right hand Matthew is talking about in 6:3-4.

It makes sense to me now. Yes, it is good to teach gratitude to my students, but I don’t actually have to use the word. I just have to work my tail off, be thankful for them and everything they’ve taught me, everything they’ve made me, and hopefully that posture, so to speak, will wear off on them in a way much more powerful and divine than I could ever create with a forced speech on gratitude.

I tried to make this turn back to the wedding cards, writing and deleting, writing and deleting, but in the end, I simply couldn’t do it. I decided I didn’t want to write too much for you to read, anyway. You can thank me later.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.