Fire Starters

Fire, fuel, combustion, and ashes; these were the thoughts racing through my mind when I left a RALC (Rochester Area Literacy Council) event last Saturday with Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. I was inspired and plagued by thoughts and visions of fires since then; all from a simple poem, reflective journaling and some powerful conversations. I was left with a nagging question that has been nibbling on my brain, as I reflect on educational practices. Am I a dedicated fire starter, someone who stokes the flames of inquiry and wonder? Or am I a fire extinguisher, someone who douses the flames of passion and creativity because I am focused too much on my own agenda?

Amy shared with us a poem entitled “Fire” by Judy Brown and asked us to write in our notebooks afterwards. Several lines of the poem seared into my soul and made me reflect on my teaching practices.

“What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.”

This struck a chord with me, because for the last two years my motto, my mantra, has been “Go slow so you can go fast”. Or simply, deceleration trumps acceleration. As someone you can live her life like it’s one big thirty minute HGTV episode where I remodel an entire house, this was a big change. I was challenging myself to teach in the moment. To focus on giving my students more time to be their own reflective practitioners. Giving them a chance to revel in their own inquiry, discuss and make plans to drive their passions. I am not going to lie, this hasn’t been easy. I feel the pressure of the demands of the content I have to teach, but sometimes I am the one putting the pressure on myself. There are days where I have to say to myself outloud, “You have permission to slow down.”

Hearing this poem reminded me of why I made this conscious choice to change my teaching. My students and I both need this. If it is the space between the logs that fuels the fire, then that means I can’t cram knowledge down the throats off my students. They need time to reflect or think about what they have learned, what questions they have, and what they would like to pursue with their learning. That means as a teacher I need to be a careful cultivator of this fire. I need to think about how and when to add a log to the fire because fires don’t combust they take time to build if you want them to last. If we add too many logs at once we will smother the fire, our students love or desire to learn will be extinguished.

The poem continues and ends saying,

“We only need to lay a log

lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings

in which the flame

that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.”

As we shared our reflections at the conference one educator talked about hidden fuel. I loved this concept. There are hidden pockets of fuel in all of our students. It’s our job as educators to find them, either through giving our students time or tapping into their interests. This will help us ignite their personal fires creating an inferno in our classrooms, where students are self-motivated learners, grounded in their thinking and excited to share their wonder. From one passionate, dedicated fire starter to another how will you tap into your students’ hidden fuel? Let’s cultivate some fire together!