Author: Jeff

I teach English at Westside High School and Composition at Metropolitan Community College. I have been an online editor for Fine Lines since we revamped to Wordpress some time in 2009.

Soap Ducks, Sore Backs & Succotash by Randy DeVillez

Soap Ducks, Sore Backs, & Succotash

by Randy DeVillez

I was an education major for a while in undergraduate school. Several situations led to my switching to a B.A. in English. The first event occurred when my Ed. Psych. teacher, delivering the same lecture two days in a row (not intentionally), while excitedly flapping his arms, spitting (due to his lisp) and drawing an imaginary bell curve in the air, executed a perfect face plant from the podium in front of the lecture hall, landing nose and chin into the lap of the pretty brunette sitting in front of me. Although I was envious, I was not impressed. I also knew I would have to endure other courses with him. The next week, my Introduction to Education instructor told us to bring a new bar of Ivory Soap for carving soap ducks the next class period. He also assigned me (an English-teacher-to-be) to shadow a physical education teacher at one of the local grade schools for my “field experience.” While I enjoyed my time with the coach and really liked him, I can’t say I was learning anything to help me teach college English.

When I thought of the tuition I was paying at a small private college to monitor kickball and carve soap ducks, I decided to switch to a liberal arts degree and double up on courses in my major. I skipped education classes and certification, figuring all the extra course work in my major and minor would help me get into graduate school and give me a better background for college teaching. In retrospect, the decision was a correct one, but my lack of training in education often surfaced during my thirty years in the classroom. I learned lessons experientially from my students and colleagues that I wish to pass on to anyone else following in my academic footsteps, anyone who is considering becoming a teacher.

ONE: Avoid giving your students a headache or backache. Continue reading “Soap Ducks, Sore Backs & Succotash by Randy DeVillez”

When the Cards Are Stacked… by Pam Curtis

When the Cards Are Stacked against You, Reshuffle

 by Pam Curtis

I have heard people say time and time again that they don’t know how I do it. “That is entirely too much for a person to handle!” I’ve had one say. And yet to me, I can’t give it any credit. When I get taken over by these dire health moments, it’s luck and instinct. It has nothing to do with me. I’m just holding on! I’m not clever or wonderful in these moments. I’m just a living organism desperate to keep living. I believe every one of you would do just as well, if not better, in my shoes. You’d get the job done, and probably with less whining and kibitzing! I honestly wish I could shut up about all of this and just live life, but I’ve been unable to do so. Instead I’ve turned it into a blog so I can fake that all my complaining is respectable. Funny thing is, I accidently found a way to make it successful. (Sometimes it seems the only way I find success is to trip over it.)

Continue reading “When the Cards Are Stacked… by Pam Curtis”

Adversity by Harvey Mackay

There Is No Education like Adversity

 by Harvey Mackay

One school of business studied 400 executives who had made it to the top and compared them to 400 who fell by the wayside during their careers. The idea was to discover how those who became successful differed from those who didn’t.

Education was not the key factor because high school dropouts were running companies, while some MBAs were slamming into dead ends. Experience? Then those at the top should have been older, and that wasn’t the case. Technical skills, social skills and dozens of other career-related variables were examined as well. Those factors didn’t provide the explanation either.

What is the only single quality that distinguished those who made it from those who did not? They persevered.

Adversity will come to every person at some time. How you meet it, what you make of it, what you allow it to take from you and give to you, is determined by your mental habits. In short, you have to take the cards in life that are dealt to you. Continue reading “Adversity by Harvey Mackay”

The Truth by Sierra Cammack

The Truth

by Sierra Cammack

When you’re looking for the truth, you have to be careful. Finding truth is like attempting to sail a boat through a violent storm, while you are not wearing a life jacket. You have to be careful not to go overboard, when your only support is a thin cord that tethers you to your mast. That tether is what you know for sure. It keeps you upright and provides some security. The raging storm? That’s what has been said, written, and whispered in hushed tones behind closed doors. It’s all the information, true and false, secret and widely known, that you are going to have to deal with. The wind and the rain are lies, pushing you off course and blinding you. The occasional finger of lightning that touches down in the distance is a truth that lights up your situation, so that just for a moment, you can see a bit further and a bit clearer. The thunder is encouragement, like a far away audience applauding, reminding you to keep going. You have to keep going. The storm is going to try and push you out to sea, but you have got to keep moving forward, guided to the answer by random flashes of light and your own instincts. After all, it is not the whole truth, if you settle for only halfway, and half a truth is not enough for me. Half a truth is still half a lie.

The Loneliness of the Independent Scholar by Stu Burns

The Loneliness of the Independent Scholar

by Stu Burns

“Myself as an Individual” by Alao-Ibiyinka

You steer your car into the university’s interior drive. There is a lot next to the library where the impressions on the asphalt have taken the shape of your tires. You pull into the familiar spot marked “Visitors Only,” grab your well-worn leather bag, and make your way inside to a flimsy table. The temporary desk will support a diverse stack of books today, background research for a rigorous article on an original topic. You set up on the faux-wood laminate, noticing how it has warped from the condensation of too many students’ drinks on too many humid days. This is the closest thing to an office you have here. It suits you.

The conferences where you speak list you as an independent scholar. When you were a grad student, an old Oxford Don sniffed that this was a discreet euphemism for “unemployed.” You are more fortunate than that. Self-interested college instructors always said that a liberal arts education prepared you for a number of jobs, and they were right. You were trained to research things and write about them. In a business drowning in reports and figures where accountants can make profits appear and disappear based on office politics, executives appreciate well-made narratives and charts. You make a living as a business analyst, not as a tenure-track professor employed by a university to teach and do research. As an independent scholar, you do it for the love. That’s what the word “amateur” means: one who works for love, not money. You have become a professional at something else. Continue reading “The Loneliness of the Independent Scholar by Stu Burns”

A Poem for All Writers! “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

Invictus

William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

A New Fine Lines and David Martin’s New Book… Available Now!

David Martin’s book – Little Birds with Broken Wings. Click here, if you are interested in learning more or purchasing a copy for yourself.

 

David’s new book is an inspiration to lovers of writing and reading of any age. It offers powerful and moving insights from his 40 years of life experiences as a teacher and writer.