And unto us that day, a reader was born....

I’m not sure what I saw in her eyes yesterday – pride, joy, relief, satisfaction – nor what label to give the moment – magical or miraculous - but I have no doubt that in the space of one breath I watched a destiny of darkness pushed aside in favor of a bright future.  I witnessed the birth of a reader.

You have to understand, the birthing process of reading is unlike the birth of life.  Yes, both can be messy and somewhat painful (somewhat, says the male author), but there are two major differences between birth of life and birth of reading:  A) reading is born differently in every single human, and B) reading does not burst onto the scene in a storm of screams and…..well, I’m not exactly sure what all comes bursting forth at the moment of birth; I stayed as far north as possible when my three daughters were born, if you catch my drift.

The reader that emerged in front of me yesterday left Kindergarten with the reputation of being a difficult child to work with.  She spent most of first grade solidifying that reputation.  She would refuse to read, she would agree to read but in a voice too quiet to hear, she would argue error correction, she would yell at her reading partner for telling her to read louder and then argue that she couldn’t read any louder than the whisper she usually read with (all of these in the span of two minutes, by the way).  On her bad days she would simply put her head on her desk and do nothing.  Her present produced failure; her future was clouded.

Enter the staff of the school this young lady attends - the staff at Fairview Elementary in Mora, MN.  A staff dedicated to student success.  She has a terrific classroom teacher who doesn’t stand out as such only because that teacher is surrounded by outstanding teachers in all corners and hallways of our PreK-2 building.  She is cared for by a cadre of paraprofessionals who deserve the label, and pay, of “teacher” for the effort they put forth every day to make all students be and feel successful.  She is supported by caring administration and office staff, social workers, kitchen staff, and custodial personnel, all of whom arrive at our building each day and make sure her basic needs are met.  She attends specialist classes with teachers who help her realize she has talents not found in books or on number lines.  Though life had given her a rocky path with far more valleys than hills, her destiny met its match when she walked through Fairview’s doors.

There were tears.  There was anger.  Glimmers of hope were snuffed by stretches of poor effort and regressed skills.  But there were also hugs.  And some smiles.  And with time came more consistent effort and less arguing.  Confusion was replaced by confidence, reluctance by readiness, failure by fluency.  These changes took months; each day seemed similar to the prior but progress was measureable when gauged by weeks.  A reader was emerging, a birth was happening – teachers could see it, paras could see it, and maybe she could feel it, but it wasn’t until yesterday…..

It’s spring benchmark assessment time.  Testing week.  One of our three assessments is a measure of words read per minute.  Target score is 70.  Students read three passages for one minute each, middle score is the score.  I sat with her in our art room (it was empty, and quiet, and that ain’t easy to find in our building) and listened to her read passage #1 – she scored a 58.  I was pleased, considering her fall score was 3.  Passage #2 was the easiest to read for most kids; she scored a 73.  73!!  She passed the target, meaning if she could somehow hit 70 on the last passage she would be an on-target reader!  As she moved through passage #3 I tried counting her words but the pounding of my heart was too distracting.  With her minute up and her last word marked I hit “submit”…….and watched a 72 pop onto the screen.

I looked at her.  She looked back, a hopeful grin curling up on a corner of her fluent mouth.  I asked if she knew what she just did; she did not.  I smiled, a genuine smile that kids don’t see often enough, and said, “You just read 72 words.  You made the target.”  Her grin grew as her eyes filled with tears.  And in that moment, with no more words passed between us, I welcomed a new reader to the rest of her life.

Home Is Where The Other Places Aren't

I went home this weekend. 

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “home” quite a bit recently, with regard to both my personal and professional self.  As it usually does, my thinking turned into searching which led to reading, which finally led to discovery.  I came across an online forum driven by the lead question “What do you consider ‘home’?”  A simple response in the middle of many rambling oratories became the end of my search:

Home is the place you would go if given the choice to live anywhere.

Aldo Leopold had his Shack in Wisconsin, Superman his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, I’ve got my parents’ farm in the northern tier of Minnesota – the place I would choose out of all to spend every day that I could.  I reference Mr. Leopold as my muse in the development of my land ethic, though I would fool no one into believing my understanding of nature resembles his.  Nor do I resemble Superman (“Blunderdud” is a more fitting moniker most days), but I often refer to my parents’ place as my Fortress of Solitude…the one place in the world I can escape the sights, sounds, and presence of the world.

The Farm is a sprawling 140-acre parcel of land that sits at the end of a dead end road and is surrounded by several thousand acres of undeveloped wilderness that is open to public use but easily accessible by only us.  Simply put, it’s perfect.  My parents’ land is mostly open, the surrounding land completely wooded.  The fields are a mix of flatlands and rolling hills, and a stream runs through the middle of the property.  Over the last 15 years my dad and I have planted roughly 25,000 tree seedlings, which are now big enough to provide cover for a variety of critters and birds.

The majority of my limited time on the Farm is spent harvesting something, developing habitat, or working on parent-driven projects.  This weekend was divided between searching for morel mushrooms on Saturday and deer farming on Sunday.  Exhaustion and sunburn are signs of a productive weekend.

The mushroom hunt took my dad and I from the Dinner Pail Road straight east to Vance’s Swamp by way of the North Walking Ridge.  A few ‘shrooms were found near the Crossroads deer stand and a couple more by the Hangman’s Tree, but pickin’s were slim compared to other years.  After a couple of hours we headed west towards Spring Crick (pronounced “crick”, a northern term for a small stream) where again we found very few mushrooms in our first hours of searching.  When I finally got to my go-to patch above the Slaughterhouse Ravine the sun was dipping towards the treetops, but the ‘shrooms were standing tall.  As darkness fell I stumbled out of the woods with several pounds of morels and five hours of walking behind me.  Dad had headed for home much earlier and was stunned to see me arrive with my “catch”.

Sunday morning I headed to the Bald Knob, my second favorite hunting area on The Farm, to start cleaning up our trails that were littered with debris from some late summer logging last year.  Is it odd that I never bother to rake my yard to remove leaves or sticks, but I spend hours raking woods trails?  Don’t answer, I already know.  While I raked the woods my dad disked our deer food plot on the Sand Flat.  A healthy food plot combined with the fresh cutting on the Knob…I’m almost shuddering as I think about how thick the deer will be in that area this fall.  Like shooting fish in a bucket.

As I worked today I thought of how I might write this blog entry; what I’ve written was in the plan but now that I see it on a screen I notice all the names.  Trust me, you’ve read but a glimpse of the named spots on The Farm.  Most people want to find a place where everybody knows their name; I like going where there isn’t anybody and every place has a name.  I’ve returned from The Farm to write this in my house that isn’t home, in the city that I’ll never be from, in a part of the world I’ve never loved…and that’s ok, because The Farm will always be waiting to welcome me back home.