Heading for the Exits: Son House

I am going to bed soon.
A most delicious idea has come forth and is now in print.
We are now in the 6th week of school.
I made a conscious choice to begin the year with something real and delightful.
So I began with Louis Jordan's Beans and Cornbread.
Then I moved into Saturday Night Fish Fry- parts 1 and 2.
My class is almost ready to investigate a reinterpretation of performing Beans and Cornbread, a cappella.

Luckily, I'm at a school that's piloting Music + Music Integration and values the idea of morning song.

But what excites me most, right now, this evening, is beginning a new unit of Academic English Language focus through an investigation of Son House's Fo' Clock Blues.
We translate home language into academic dialect and visa versa while drawing comparisons of texts regarding structure, simile, metaphor, and multiple meanings of words and phrases. We look at plot, causes, effects and author's purpose.

I keep you posted on how it all lays out.
But there's no doing Eddie James 'Son' House wrong.

If you're watching us, walk with me, kind sir.
Assist me with my decisions regarding rigor.
Bless me with my intent and handling of the gifts you've given.
I honor my students with your spirit and heritage.


Heading for the exits.

I wonder how my colleagues across the nation are holding up. It seems to be popular to demonize public education in it's current state. And arguably teachers and their unions are painted as pallbearers for a American Academic Achievement. But as the current state of education as well as how teachers are 'held accountable' for their performance is transformed under the travails of education reform- I want folks to know I spent my Saturday at a free workshop sponsored by the California Geological Society: 9 am to 3 pm. I was graced with 12 copies of a wonderful new atlas, provided with lesson plans, received informative guidance of how to use the text with my 4th graders and fed some tasty home baked tidbits from co-hosts.

For such a terrific event, I was shocked that there were only about 14 teachers there. But it was a weekend after all. Where was everyone else? It was free- or at least sponsored by some well-meaning foundations. And who can beat box lunches from Panera?

Oh, yeah, we all have lives. We're human beings. It was a lovely day. The Blue Angels were flying over a completely cloudless warm San Francisco Bay. But I guarantee you, wherever the other teachers were, they were out there doing their thing as teachers. Because this is the one job that actually describes who you ARE. It's not something you walk in and 'do.'

Google Maps showed me where Lake Cormorant, Mississippi is. The Atlas will assist me with making this location relative to Son House's music. For, 69 years ago sometime between September 24th and the 31st, Son House set himself down and recorded Fo' Clock Blues with Willie Brown on vocal and guitar, Fiddlin' Joe Martin on vocal and mandolin, with Leroy Williams on harmonica- there at a place called Klack's Store.
This fabled recording location, spelled Clack's store as well,"served as a store, farm commissary and train station. (The) store (was) torn down (in) 1993. (The)Store sign (is) on display at the Delta Blues Museum.)

Let's not jet out on the kids just yet.
We've got a lot to give em.

As some of my students so enthusiastically pipe at the beginning of something good...
"Let's get it."

-bwlp