“The new humanity will be universal and it will have the artist’s attitude; that is, it will recognize that the immense value and beauty of the human being lies precisely in the fact that he belongs to the two Kingdoms of nature and the spirits.”   Thomas Mann

                  Thomas Mann’s words strike a deep and rich chord in this educator’s heart. Deep

within me, I believe that my real job is to woo the young people in my classroom into a love affair with all that the universe graciously gives us. To allow them to be the artists and create rich and vibrant forms that cherish the beauty, the reality, and the struggle transcends all other agenda.

                  The artist is present at birth. The young child is intuitively attracted to beauty. This allurement is the basic attraction fort all of us. Four year-old Harlan was attracted by the bright feathers of the young bird that lay wounded in his yard. He was devastated when the birdie died. Bringing it to school in a brown paper sack with downcast eyes and a heavy heart, he handed it to the teacher. Harlan’s hurt for the dad bird needed to be expressed in a way that both honored his feelings and the death of a living creature. The troop of young children marched outside, found a shovel, and proceeded to dig a grave for the birdie. After it was properly buried, they placed dried weeds and pinecones on the shallow grave. For Harlan, the whole affair wasn’t quite finished. Sitting in his chair he pensively drew his knees up to his chin. The following words poured forth. The teacher hurriedly wrote lest she interrupt for even a moment the flow of these beautiful words.

                                                      Lay down birdie

                                                      We so love you.

                                                      You were our bird.

                                                      You’ve died.

                                                      We’ve buried you.

                                                      I cried inside.

                                                      We put flowers over the grave.

                                                      We sang a song

                                                      And we went away.

                                                      You won’t come back alive

                                                      You got dead from our kitty.

                                                      My Daddy didn’t see it.

                                                      Goodbye little bird.

                  When he finished a smile spread across his now peaceful face. The beauty of the moment had been savored by us all. Harlan’s birdie was a fanciful thing – a great joy that had been lost to him.

                  This young poet’s words touch me deeply. Thomas Mann’s adult words hit me again. “The value of a human being lies precisely in the fact that he belongs to the two Kingdoms of nature and the spirit.” Harlan merged the two worlds of nature and the spirit and all of us who witnessed it were the richer.

                  Walking through the weeks of the year with fourteen and fifteen year olds shakes me into the realization that perhaps the horror and boredom that Auden alludes to in these lines:

… this stupid world where

                                    Gadgets are gods and we go on talking.

                                    Many about much, but remain alone.

                                    Alive, but alone, belonging – where?

                                    Unattached as tumble weed.

is racing through the blood of these young people. I wish for them ‘to art’ when they express themselves. I wish them ‘to art’ when they play. I wish for them ‘to art’ when they celebrate. And most of all I wish them ‘to art’ when they are quiet and reflective. Art should be a verb. Art is all about expression. Art is about mystery and allurement. There are no correct, regulated, structured, boxed answers. Yet, and I sigh, that is the world these fourteen year olds contend with. What are the attractions, the mysteries, the beauty for our young people? The hunger runs deep. They cry out. Art tames. Art transcends the violent eruptions and the slow seethings.

                  Three teenage girls, vibrant with life, walk slowly down the backside of the mountain we spent the morning climbing. Their exuberance simmered. The early giggles and high spirits gentled. Walking into the fern glen that afternoon with all its lush, moist beauty, triggered such a passionate response to nature’s radiance. I waited in awe for each expression to come. Beauty had worked its way through to the very place where they really lived. The whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected moments came through in the form of deeply meaningful, celebrative words. An attendant silence greeted each thought.

                  Dostoyevsky wrote that ‘beauty will save the world.”  In those moments in the fern glen, at the birdie burial and many ecstatic others, I know Dostoyevsky is prophetic.

I will continue to woo my students into the inexhaustible beauty of the universe – so that they may art.