Revisiting, Re-experiencing, Reliving, Retelling

July 30, 2024

1984

Meeting ex-student Mark was a temporal jog, and his words, “that was some picnic” stayed with me for several days after bumping into him in the mall. While writing a description of our brief encounter in a field note, I allowed myself to drift back to 1984. Issues of identity surfaced as a result of the dissonance between the practice of adult education and the theoretical literature. Reflecting back, the 1984 landscape seemed supportive to my teaching situation and the work I did with students like Mark who intended to use the program offerings in English and math upgrading, vocational decision making, and life skills enhancement to change their lives.

Not wanting to let go of the emotions I felt after my chance encounter with Mark, I sought an opportunity between field placement visits to drive to the site of the picnic at Mable Beach. To prepare for my brief visit to the beach I picked up a cup of coffee from the small store adjacent to the park alongside the lakeshore. As I sat on a large beach rock, I wrote in my journal:

The store and snack bar did not exist in 1984. When I asked the owner how long his store was here, he said one year. I’m trying to picture what was in its place. As I sit here, I can’t help but wonder how I might appear to others – me, a well-dressed woman in her tailored dress coat sitting on this rock, on a cool day in early November. If anyone should ask, I would explain that I am deliberately sitting here to take my mind back in time. I would say that I want to prevail on, and maybe even relive my fond memories of the 1984 class picnic. (Journal F, November 5, 1997).

People enjoying a picnic outside on tablecloth on the ground.

I wondered what people passing by almost fourteen years ago thought when they observed a group of adults of various ages, shapes and sizes, romping on the beach and through the treed park adjacent the lake on the other side of the roadway. As I sat writing, the movement of the water and the sound of the waves across the small pebbles on the beach provided an aural dimension (Crites, 1986) as I remembered the students in my class:

Some students were on the beach. Others were playing baseball. The summer day wasn’t too much warmer than it feels today. I am struck by my fond memories of the past students. I also remember how concerned I was about one student. My image of him is clear, but I can’t remember his name. The wind on my face and the chill in the air reminds me of how he could have changed, and spoiled, the whole day because of his drunkenness. Looking towards the large body of water, to the point where he stood, remembering him with his shirt off, his denims heavy with water, I also recall feeling thankful for the support of the other students, and my colleague, Susan, and how we pulled together in such a matter-of-fact fashion to get him out of the water. When it was time to eat, I remember the generous quantities of salad, bread, cheese and meat covering the tops of two picnic tables pulled together. I’m certain that someone even remembered to bring a tablecloth. The day felt like a celebration. For Mark the picnic was memorable. What I remember of the picnic is a small public beach on a large lake outside of the city. The students picked the site and planned the activities for the day. Many of the students knew the park well, and for them I had the sense of their personal histories holding stories that blended with the hospitable texture of the day’s picnic. (Journal F, November 15, 1997).

For me, often times the sound of water movement or pouring liquid will invoke in me feelings of aloneness. The crisp sounds of Mable Lake as the water glided over the pebbles resonated with the feelings of aloneness I sometimes experience since shifting across the landscape boundary from community based education into the post-secondary sector. Following Crites’ (1986) notion of claiming a memory about identity and selfhood, the shoreline sounds provoked, and also symbolized, a visceral level of seclusion in terms of myself as a teacher on the current post-secondary, community college landscape.

My early teaching experience working closely with the students who entered into the Basic Job Readiness program, carved out for me my understanding of what Cranton (1992) describes as the autonomous relationship between my students and me in the context of a student / teacher relationship. I embraced Cranton’s notion of autonomy between the student and the educator, perhaps naively, but as a teaching rule. This rule was further endorsed by a philosophy of the female educators I taught with in the first eight years of my teaching career. Somehow, perhaps magically, but also because Christina and I had the autonomy to interview and hire our teaching colleagues, we chose people who thought like us.

The nature of an autonomous relationship between a former student and myself is revealed in my gift from Alice.

Woman's hand with pen and letters with cup of coffee on desk.

A Gift from Alice

My life had taken several formations since working with Alice. It was a miracle her letter found its way to me. Over time I had received many letters from students and colleagues that moved me and touched me in special ways. But this letter felt different. The hand written note, in calligraphic style tucked inside a beautiful baroque card read, “Dream and wonderful things can happen,” with the added inscription in calligraphic pen from Alice, saying, “Bev, This is an appreciation note to a friend who helped and influenced me to grow. Thank you for your wisdom and your support,” In her letter to me she wrote:

April 11, ‘91’

Dear Bev;

… I’ve come a long way since seeing you last, grown up quite a bit.

I’m reading this great book on caring for self and others. One of the exercises in it was to write an appreciation note to all those who have been a positive influence on your heart. This is written with deep appreciation for your influence, insight and support to me when I did not have the knowledge or the skills to cope with my changing life.

Only by chance, I ended up in your class and that really was the turning-point

of my life. To change is so hard and yet I changed my thoughts, my goals, my daily routine. So frequently now I wonder what the problem was so long ago. To keep you up to date; … Bev, I’ve grown so much, feeling confident knowing what I’m doing in the business …I’m driving in the daylight—my eyes, my health, my energy are 90% improved. I talk to a group of 50 people on a bus about this historical hamlet. I’m teaching a stencil class, $100 a day. This recession has made me finds other ways to promote business and myself.

So you see, your seeds have grown and I do so appreciate your efforts in planting them. I hope happiness is there for you. I’m finding it within myself. Thanks to you,

Sincerely, Ali

When I received the letter I had just returned from a teaching assignment in Lahr, Germany. I called the correspondence I received from Alice a miracle letter because my return to that former address was unanticipated. It felt as though Alice’s letter had found me in spite of all the turmoil in my life at that time. Her letter felt like a very special gift.

Each time I read Alice’s letter I am pulled back in time. Re-reading the letter and thinking about inquiry spaces, I asked a number of narrative questions. I wondered, how, as a younger and less experienced teacher, did I see Alice? Who was Alice in relation to the curriculum? What narrative threads brought Alice to the life skills and vocational readiness program?

I stitched together my story of Alice in my own memory. Other than the letter she wrote me, I had no concrete field texts to draw on. I can only tell my teaching story of Alice from a “temporal and spatial and bodily distance” (Connelly and Clandinin, 2000, p. 58). The re-shaping of my memory has a social-personal dimension. Soon after settling into my new home after returning to Canada from Germany, I thought about connecting with Alice. For some reason, at the time, I felt more compelled to visit her small store in the hamlet she wrote about rather than respond to her in writing. My memory of my visit to her store on a warm summer day is patched into remembering travelling with my cousin in her then boyfriend’s MGB sports car with the roof down. We drove the service roads and ate lunch in a quaint country inn close to the store. I remember entering into Alice’s shop that was originally a two-story schoolhouse. Alice was not there, however, her warmth, genuiness, and creativity seemed to be everywhere.

Patching together the fragments of my teacher story, my visit, and the concreteness of the letter, I tell the following recollection. Alice was in my class in 1988, just a few months before I transferred into the post-secondary sector of the college. The student list was divided among the teaching faculty so that each student received individual counselling, as well as being in each of our classes. I was Alice’s counsellor. At the time Alice, a mother of two adolescent children, came to our program during a distressed period in her life. Her husband, a retired administrator in education, left Alice and her children to be with a much younger woman. At this time in her life, Alice was also dealing with a great deal of uncertainty about maintaining her eyesight. I recall her oscillating hope and the fears she expressed about continuing her work as an artist.

I thought many times about writing to Alice. So much time had passed since seeing her and receiving her letter that I held little hope of ever finding her. But in the spirit of miracles I decided to write. What follows in my next blog, is an excerpt from my letter to Alice.

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