In Shakespeare’s sixth season of life, there are spectacles and a process showing life beginning to wither away. Now, I’ve had the spectacles since childhood, but as I mentioned in my last seasonal writing, those junior high students helped propel me into what Louisianans describe as “lagniappe” – not withering away but something extra. As Oscar Hammerstein observed in his lyrics to “Getting to Know You,”
It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought
That if you become a teacher
By your pupils you'll be taught.
I entered my junior high teaching years fully expecting retirement to be the next step, but something happened on the very first day of class. I assigned a get-acquainted writing prompt, having already completed my own ready-to-share response. I waited until last to read my writing and received an enthusiastic round of applause – from seventh graders!
Soon after, the Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin had a contest for teachers to submit a short essay or poem or both on using technology in the classroom. They planned to publish five in each category. In 1997, we were on the threshold of classroom computer usage, and I had a few words to say. My students did critique practice with my essay and my poem. They tweaked a sentence here and replaced a word there before I submitted. We checked the library computer together the day the results were posted, and they may have been even more excited than I was when both made the cut.
I began to realize that my writing skills had been used wherever I had worked, and now my students seemed to like the things I wrote. In the course of the next few years, I wrote with them, took a correspondence children’s writing course, and joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I began placing a few pieces and collecting many rejection letters. When the door opened to write children’s curriculum for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) on a regular basis, it seemed time to pursue the lagniappe – writing.
Something extra it has been! Ten years of writing with the CBF writing team brought many long-term friendships. A move to Hattiesburg, MS opened the door to the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection and the Ezra Jack Keats archives. I’ve enjoyed publishing in Highlights for Children, Cricket, Thema, and just this week in Wildlife Mississippi! Lagniappe on top of lagniappe has been the wide circle of friendships with other writers that has cropped up naturally. I thank my students who taught and encouraged me when, all the time, I thought that was what I was doing for them.
As for Shakespeare’s seventh season, it will not be appearing here. His season of sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything hasn’t arrived yet but certainly will not lend itself to a blog when it arrives!