A few weeks ago, I had an overwhelming urge to speak with a certain old friend from high school. We couldn't have been closer during those four character shaping years, yet lost touch after graduation. She married right after graduation and began working with her husband and raising a family, and I was off to college. And, as the words of an old Joni Mitchell song (The Circle Game) can remind us, "The seasons they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down. We're captive on the carousel of time." The years have flown by, each of us busy with our own lives and families, and suddenly I couldn't stop thinking about how much I needed to talk to Linda.
My old friend is not on social media (I tried that first!), so I called my uncle, who in my memory had some connection to Linda's husband, and word somehow reached her that I was trying to get in touch. As fate would have it, Linda was in the hospital at the time I had been thinking about her, and was near death. She tells me now that she was thinking about me at the same time and wanted to find and talk with me too. She's back at home, and just as I was starting to write this blog post about poetry (because April), my phone rang with an unfamiliar number from my hometown.
If you don't believe in miracles, I'm not sure I can convince you, but after the initial shock and pure joy at hearing her voice again, I synced my earphones, brewed a mug of tea, and stepped away from the computer. I have had the most amazing afternoon of escaping back in time with my friend and pondering the meaning of friendship. I found this quote which is really speaking to me today. "A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." - Elbert Hubbard
Friendship can seem like a miracle, but it is also something that can (and should) be taught. Throughout my classroom career, I tried to encourage friendship among my students. I found ways to help those who may have been shy or reluctant to reach out and form some connections. I probably didn't originate the phrase, "It's not a wedding!", but I used it when objections arose to the cooperative groups that I had set up for learning activities.
I devoted years in my career to encouraging friendship, and have developed quite a few resources in Rainbow City Learning to do the same for your students. I hope you'll browse through them. Here's a cute little video I developed with my friend Lessia Bonn to go with a Friendship/Poetry unit that we co-authored . You can find the unit here. For the video, just click below! Why not teach friendship and poetry at the same time? After all, it's April!
For more April-themed ideas, check out the blogs of Teacher Talk below! If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at TeachersPayTeachers.com. For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv. Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions.
