a bonnaroo.

this past weekend was this summer's installment of the newly epic music festival bonnaroo. a lemony snickets left me unable to attend this festival which i otherwise had every intention of attending this year. well, i felt it was unfortunate at first.



the etymology, or at least the popularization, of the word bonnaroo is attributed to a new orleans blues/boogie woogie musician named dr. john, and is a sort of cajun slang for really good time.

so instead of trekking out to the middle of field, tennessee to see one of the greatest festival line-ups assembled in my youthful era, i was teaching reading in a sweltering classroom to the youth of central texas.

i have no regrets. here's why:

i was leading a discussion on the text we were reading, and though my students (high school age) were at first apprehensive to participate, possibly exposing their lack of utter coolness, the discussion really started to come alive, take shape, and open up deep lines of communication in the classroom. at one point, i called on a girl (who we will call nena), to participate in the discussion. nena has shown signs of dismay toward her obligation to be in the classroom since the minute she walked in, so naturally i am determined to get her to love being there.

after she responded disdainfully that she did not have an opinion, i moved on to another student. during the break, i asked to speak to her, and told her that i called on her because i was interested in what she had to say and that it did not matter if what she said was right or wrong, but that she was an interesting person and others would benefit from having heard her. amazingly, her facade of anger crumbled, and she became despondent. she confessed she was struggling with the material greatly and felt that she could not enjoy reading because it was too difficult for her.

having your mother enroll you in a class because she knows you need help is one thing. admitting out loud that you are insecure about your own lack of ability and are fearful of overcoming it is another. i feel like real progress was made in that moment.

i do not know whether nena will become a better reader after my class; if she will try harder or read more books or if school will become less of a citadel for her to conquer. i do not know if i will ever see her or hear from her again after she finishes my class on july 12th. i also do not know if i will ever forget that conversation. it was the moment i knew i was a teacher.

it would have been nice to camp out for four days amongst hippies and hipsters, use unsanitary personal refuse facilities, drink a case of dale's, see wilco play the lead-in twilight set for the boss, see mgmt and passion pit rock raucous crowds, or hear snoop dogg introduce phish; but i am sure i can hear about those things, read them on a blog or in a magazine, and think they are cool.

i am not sure, however, there would have ever been another moment in my life like the one nena and i shared. and i know that is cool.