Durham, NC
Day of the Dead
Well, I'm cheating a little. El Día de Los Muertos was officially Saturday, November 1st. There's no school on Saturday, of course, so Middle School observed it yesterday, Monday morning. Students were asked to bring in photographs of deceased loved ones, which were arranged on a table in the center area. Francoise, who teaches Spanish, oversaw a presentation of the traditional Latino celebration: calaveras, chocolate milk, etc. Then, Henry led the whole school into a twenty-minute meeting for worship and invited us to speak of the dead.
Middle School 'settles in' every morning and 'settles out' every afternoon. This ritual is modeled upon the traditional Quaker meeting for worship, over which no minister or priest presides. Everyone sits and reflects in silence, and those who are 'moved to speak' give the de facto collaborative 'sermon'. But our settling in and out are almost never interrupted by speakers, and this differs from my days as a student: I recall that we often piped up to share a feeling, a thought, or a need. Nowadays, there is the usual fidgeting and clowning; diffuse tranquility that can be either meditative or drowsy; and a teacher or two bustling over the copier behind the pane of soundproof glass that separates the staff room from the center area. But no talking. We wait out five minutes until Thomas, the Head Teacher, says "Good Morning, Middle School!" We respond, in unison, "Good Morning, Thomas!" The lights come on, announcements are made, and then we scatter to our first period classes. Often, a teacher pulls one or more students aside, issues a chastisement about 'proper settling out', and threatens a consequence, like the controversial 'centering'.
So the prospect of a twenty-minute meeting for worship worried me. There was no way we'd make it. The kids can't sit still; they never say anything in meetings for worship, anyway; plus, they were still high on sugar from their Halloween looting. And I was worked up, too. Somehow, I'd forgotten to notice that I had nothing planned for first or second period. How was I going to sit still? Indeed, I sprang up as the silence descended, went into the staff room to do some eleventh-hour web surfing, but found Alison already camped there doing her own prep. Dejected, tired, uncertain, I arranged myself into my version of sukhasana among the snot-covered minions on the floor, and tried hard to settle in.
