2024-2025 School Year - September
Not sure what useless information I should leave here this time. I cannot eat chocolate, it makes my stomach violently upset. I have still dealing with a back injury/problem (aging) but it is manageable if I find time to do my exercises, which lately has been difficult. I play a lot of board games and am always looking for new ones. I have done much hiking this summer and plan to continue to mix it together with my paddling. Over summer I did my second ever paddling camping trip - it was great and I have many photos from it. I am very happy that we are limiting the roll that phones play in students lives in the classroom. So much good comes from unplugging. There is some random trivia about me for this year.
Older
Here is a piece I always contemplate sharing with students at the beginning of the year so they can get to know me. I never go through with it though, so I will just share it here. Feel free to send me a comment, or tell me, or not.
Enough.
Who is F. Culbert
I am … (part the first)
I am of big city birth
and of growing in small town worth.
I am of five in my family tree
and a branch that holds only me.
I am of a youth spent outdoors
and of character built in chores.
I am of three generations of higher education
and of countless more in great intoxication
I am of renamed clinical insanity
and of insight into the frailty of humanity
I am of moving here and there
and of times many foul, many fair.
I am of two diplomas and now three degrees
and of failed hips, but good knees.
I am of all of this, yet
I am from a different set.
I am … (part the second)
I am from green
Trees and fields on twenty-six acres surrounded
By the unbounded land of the crown.
Youth spent in reminiscent of monkey ancestors
Climbing, swinging, hanging in pines, firs, poplars,
Anything that held the pounds of my youth.
Later in the fall those same trees
Would meet my father’s saw
And my leather palmed hands
To be stacked for a future date with the flame.
I am from a land that provides.
I am from blue
A youth spent with wet feet
Kicks and strokes that came as easy as steps
Teenage years spent climbing in and out
Of lakes, rivers, streams and anything swimmable.
Jumping off waterfalls, swinging on ropes, plunging off cliffs
All ending in a splash on a long summer day
Clouds building in the afternoon heat on the horizons of my summer
The glint of sun off the ribbons and mirrors of blue
Creating soft reminders of the mutability of life
And always hinting whispers of the great salt blue
That calls at my core.
I am from water that calls.
I am from white
Winters spent outdoors
Ice-particled air freezing nose hairs on first breaths
Hours spent hunting for fresh tracks
And turn perfection
On slopes across the West
Moments measured on snow drifts
As timeless bliss
Fresh turns on a powder day
Big air, hard carves, fast turns
Corduroy cruising
All with white rock majesties lurking behind my shoulders
I am from mountains that play.
I am from black
Ink on the page
Words
Read and written
Stories that shaped the worlds in my head
Ideas that fueled thoughts across those worlds
Written and read
Emotions bled out through a pen
The landscape experiences of my youth preserved
I am from words that nourished.
I am from the rainbow
A myriad of colours that represent
A myriad of experiences, places, feelings
And always at the end,
Though not always in sight
Lies that pot of gold
I am from a rich future.
Culbert
Here is an poem from a couple years ago about education.
The sounds of education
Education
Every time I hear the word,
I hear the connotations of it
echoing around and around.
The white agenda, British imperialism,
Feminist discourse, Christian, classic,
On
and on
So many agendas, or slants, angles,
views.
None of the pitches of the word
seem to carry much about learning,
or about the individuals involved.
Education says nothing about students
Nor does it speak of exploration
Inquiry, curiosity
or creativity.
It just rings falsely of power and control,
of politics.
Education
Information about me, that is unnecessary to know. (from 2022-2023 School Year)
I like to write poetry. I stopped for a while, but I plan to get back into it. I might put the odd other thing up about me, like I have achieved 100 hours of paddling in 2020, and 2021 by the end of December, and this year I did so by the end of August. And in August I paddled more than 100 km over the course of the month.
March 2020 (I know this is old, but I am leaving it here for a bit)
Here we are, the day before spring break, and uncertain about the future. Who knows what lies ahead with this current health issue. Hopefully all goes calmly and rationally, but remember, be there for each other and be supportive and understanding. The world needs that the most right now. Enjoy a good book in the down time we have and keep using that brain. Take care.
On a personal note, thank you to all of you who were supportive in my time of sadness and struggle. I am still very sad after all, my mom is gone. I think I will always be sad about it. But, I also recognize the need to move forward and to be happy and focus on the good times and experiences that I still have to come. So thank you all for helping me on my journey.