Today was kind of the last official day for School of Tomorrow (language hagwon); as of next week, we become part of LinguaForum officially. We had a long staff meeting that wasn’t entirely pleasant, as we confronted the changes that we face – more classes to teach, completely changed curricula, etc.
Meanwhile, it was hard to get motivated to teach out of the “old” books for one last day – so I had the kids reading a simple little poem by Wallace Stevens, called “The Snow Man.”
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitterOf the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
