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chrome dreams

Dispatch from a Red Zone

November 1, 2020 by Faith Phillips

The intercom sounded overhead. Students recited the pledge of allegiance and remained standing afterward, heads bowed in a moment of silence. This community is a religious one; we are a Christian majority. We are also unabashed in our rural identity. Another notable fact is that Adair County is the only minority-majority county in the State of Oklahoma. Our population largely descends from Trail of Tears survivors. As a proud borough in the Cherokee Nation, our suspicion of the federal government and its motivation lingers.

School staff members gathered beneath stately pine trees at the beginning of August. There, masked in a socially distanced circle, many of us prayed together. We were one of the few Oklahoma schools to open in person on the first scheduled day. The school board made that decision, prompted by an overwhelming majority of political will from the community. 

My faith wavered that day. I stood just outside the circle, unnerved by the real plausibility of exposure. My husband, a diabetic and a heart patient, is at high risk for complications from Covid 19. Almost a year ago I said a vow to honor and keep him, in sickness and in health. I meant what I said. Some of our most highly skilled, veteran teachers are high risk, too. They show up anyway.

My other confession is that I never believed there was a chance, not a single chance in hell, that we would make it past the first three weeks of school in the midst of this pandemic. I anticipated a massive outbreak in the beginning. That did not happen. I was wrong. For that, I owe some people an apology, including my colleagues and the administration. 

One of the arguments against coming back to school was that it was ridiculous to expect high schoolers to wear masks every day. Guess what? They did it. These students, when presented with an optional quarantine, did not choose to exercise that option. They want to be here. They need to be here. They will do whatever it takes to have a routine, to experience some semblance of normalcy in a time when there just is no such thing. Two of my advanced creative writing students recently appeared on a statewide news program for an interview about their political views. One part of the poll asked about their hope for the future. These two students happen to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum but they engaged each other with civility and respect. They recognize the dignity inherent in one another. The journalists remarked that the students conducted themselves with much greater decorum than the presidential candidates during recent debates. What a statement. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself. 

I prayed in July that school would not resume in person until a vaccine was available. It was a selfish prayer because I knew without a doubt if school officials voted to return, I would report back and finish my obligation to the school and the students. There was no way I would bail on these people, my people, when the deal went down. The school feels very much like a microcosm of society right now. Some of us believe wholeheartedly that a mandatory mask policy is the only way to sustain this remarkable feat and then safely return home to our families at the end of the day. Many others remain equally convicted that masks are a blatant political infringement upon fundamental freedoms. They wear their masks and show up anyway. Unspoken tensions exist. We don’t discuss politics in the hall. It feels a bit like whistling past the graveyard. Yet we come together day after day for the students and do what has been asked of us.

My reverend explained it like this, “ask yourself one question. Are you willing to die for your students?” It’s that simple. Every person I work with made that decision, although many would never frame the issue in such dramatic terms. Whether or not we agree politically, that is the one place where we stand united. I would stand shoulder to shoulder with these people to defend our community. But what do you do when the invader is already on the inside? 

Am’re Ford, a teacher in a metropolitan area on the other side of Oklahoma, wrote this last week:

“Things I’m juggling as a teacher rn:

Teaching content

A pandemic

My mental health

Students mental health

Coworkers mental health

Canvas not working like it’s post to

6th graders who are adjusting to middle school and online learning

Hella missing assignments

Adults concerned about aforementioned missing assignments

Remembering there’s a pandemic and that I need to extend grace

Planning content to teach

Incentive program

Making orchestra fun

Students that still don’t have materials

Prolly 4 other things that I can’t remember becaws all the things

It ain’t a pity post but some folx don’t realize all the stuff we be doing”

Mr. Ford nailed it up there on the wall for all to see; everything in one post. Back here at home we are about to enter week thirteen of in-person instruction and it appears the viral surge is upon us. Many people in our community have comorbidities. We’ve lost elders. Is it survival of the fittest now? Are we ok with applying that concept to our fellows? On the other hand, are we ok with sending students home, knowing full well that some will receive neither adequate nutrition nor instruction? Our people are extremely resilient. Yet in a community that is already at war with poverty, addiction, crime, and associated health issues, an education is one of the only sure tickets to rise above it all.

Another colleague of mine is a rare gem of a human being. He is one of about 2,000 living Cherokee speakers.  His life is dedicated to teaching the language to our students, the population of which is 82% indigenous. I knew at the beginning of the year he would be especially susceptible. I confided my anxiety about him early on. About a month ago, my nightmare came true. He was walking across the parking lot and I was leaving for the day. He said, “Ms. Phillips, I had a sniffle so I went for a test. Now they want me to quarantine.” 

Not long afterward he wrote to say his test came back positive. I feared the worst and prayed for the best. He suffered at length with Covid and later explained that in the most frightening moments of the virus, he sensed a dark presence in his home and hallucinated, alone. Everyone who lives through Covid has a different experience. Already, as we enter the fall, some of us in the community have not made it out alive.

The word “fear” gets tossed around like a hot potato just lately. We’ve used it as a weapon against each other. I’ve been guilty of saying “no fear” to insinuate that I operate my life without ever experiencing the chains of that basic human emotion. But that was a facade. I do feel fear. Fear for my colleagues, fear for my family, fear for my students. I read somewhere that courage is feeling fear, knowing something is more important than fear, and taking action anyway. I hope that’s true. I desire so much to be a courageous woman.

It feels trite to say it out loud, yet the question remains, have we passed the point of no return? For the sake of these students, we must say no. Won’t we unify for each other? The ultimate test should be this: will we be able to look each other in the eye when all this is over? Did we love and look out for each other? Did we fulfill the promise? 

Yesterday I heard the most difficult question of my short tenure as a teacher:

 “Ms. Phillips, is this the end of the world?” 

My student was dead serious, in search of comfort and assurance. It’s past time now to step up, show leadership, provide real hope, and bandage the wounds of our fellows. The election happens in two days. Our young people are looking to us in this moment. I don’t feel safe at school right now. I don’t believe we should be there. But we are there and we will continue to be until we get sick or officials say it is time to go home. I’m grateful I don’t have to make the call and I pray for the ones burdened with that heavy decision. It’s time for empathy now. It’s time for hella grace. We are all in this together and the time is now.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 Visions, cherokee nation, Cherokee writer, chrome dreams, Okie Noir

2020 Visions: Show Me Your Life Belt & I’ll Show You Mine. April 20 – 23

April 22, 2020 by Faith Phillips

This is my life belt: growing up in the hills of Adair County with family, married in Vegas, my baby Jaxon, law school, divorce, working in Ardmore (oil and gas), Africa, writing books and then teaching books with you, the feather represents my wedding at the creek and the restoration of my heart. The arrow pointing up represents my faith. What does your belt look like?

Monday, April 20

No man ever followed his genius until it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, —that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality … The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. 

~Thoreau, Life In The Woods

Passage highlighted in one of the books found with Chris McCandless’s remains. 

We were supposed to come back to school on March 23rd. We learned on Thursday, March 19th that we would not be coming back. Shortly thereafter, it became clear that we would not be meeting again in 211. We didn’t get a chance to finish up some of the things we started. 

Journal: What did you think on that day when you knew for sure we would not go back? What made you feel that way? Have your feelings changed in the time since? If so, how have they changed today?

Tuesday, April 21

For more than eight months after he said good-bye to McCandless, Franz remained at his campsite, scanning the road for the approach of a young man with a large pack, waiting patiently for Alex to return. During the last week of 1992, the day after Christmas, he picked up two hitchhikers on his way back from Salton City to check his mail. . . ‘I started telling them about my friend, Alex, and the adventure he’d set out to have in Alaska.’ Suddenly, the Indian youth interrupted: “Was his name Alex McCandless?”

‘Yes, that’s right. So, you’ve met him then–’

“I hate to tell you mister, but your friend is dead. Froze to death up on the tundra. Just read about it in Outdoor magazine.”

In shock, Franz interrogated the hitchhiker at length. The details rang true; his story added up. Something had gone horribly wrong. McCandless would never be coming back. 

~Into the Wild, Chapter 6 

The “new normal” is something we hear so often these days. Social isolation is another. American society is slowly and grudgingly adjusting to the “new normal” of people staying home, working from home and quarantining themselves to protect against this disease. 

Journal: Have you found “new normal” to be a challenge? What problems have you encountered? How had your life changed, if at all? Is there anything about it that you enjoy? 

Wednesday, April 22

Into the Wild

Chris McCandless meets an old Christian man out on the road who takes him in, feeds him, gives him shelter and teaches him to hand tool leather. So McCandless (who, by this time, had changed his name to Alexander Supertramp) hand tools a leather belt to display the story of his wanderings. On one end was his new name “Alex”, then his old name’s initials “CJM” which framed a skull and crossbones, a 2 lane blacktop, a No U-Turn sign, a thunderstorm producing a flash flood that engulfs a car, a hitchhiker’s thumb, an eagle, the Sierra Nevada, salmon in the Pacific, the Pacific Coast Highway, the Rockies, wheat fields, a South Dakota rattlesnake, the Colorado River, a canoe, and finally at the end the letter “N”, presumably representing the direction North where he would go on to meet his demise. I can picture this belt in my mind. Like all great art it made me think about my own life. What will matter enough to go on my belt?

Journal: Create a belt of your life. Draw pictures to represent the most memorable moments (both good and bad) that you would want to put on your own hand tooled belt. You can draw this and take a photo of it, send the picture to me via email or text, with an explanation of each symbol. 

Filed Under: okienoir, Uncategorized Tagged With: Cherokee writer, chrome dreams, Okie Noir

2020 Visions: Let Us Advance On the Chaos

April 7, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Tuesday, April 7

2020 Visions, Part II

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort. Let us advance on Chaos and the Dark. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

We had some very interesting moments at the beginning of the year. Someone said our classroom looked like the room of a witch. A senior asked to hear the story of how I recovered from a snake bite. A gentleman told me a hobbit joke. One of you said you didn’t want to read out loud in front of the class. The point is, as individuals and as a group, we went through a real metamorphosis during our time together. Some of our expectations came true, but for the most part, everything wonderful came from events we could not have foreseen.

Who could have guessed that our class would be on television and the radio? I never expected we would make a podcast for our research project until the week we started! Did you ever think we would be selected by NPR for national recognition?

Journal: We came together with very different expectations. What were your expectations for the year back in August 2019?  How does the current reality differ from your expectations? Do you think the difference is a good or a bad thing?

Finally, what do you aspire to become now? How will you make your plans a reality? How will you advance on the chaos? Be specific.

*Note: as we move forward through our journals I will feature a song every day from the playlists you sent yesterday. Thank you for your work and your honest. It was thoughtful, moving, and spectacular!
Song of the Day: Don’t Stop Me Now

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020visions, chrome dreams, seniors 2020

2020 Visions, Part I

April 6, 2020 by Faith Phillips

#Seniors2020 in the paint.

We are all in this together and the time is now.

Monday, April 6

Greetings, Earthlings, I have come here to assert my world domination at long last. Oops, wrong thread. I meant to say, hello, Seniors 2020!

We made a time capsule when I was a Senior at Stilwell High School way back in 1996. It was one of the last things I did as a Stilwell Indian. Ten years later I went to my high school reunion and they handed out the items we had written (song lyrics, letters, etc.) I was shocked and delighted at 28 years old to see the things I’d written to myself as a teenager. Some people say teenagers are foolish but that is a falsehood. You’re already very wise and you know more than most. Also, no one in the world is more of an expert about you than YOU. So our final project as a class will be to read excerpts from our books and write 20 days worth of journal entries. 

If you ever have any questions or concerns about this project OR if you need anything at all you can contact me on my cell phone. I am also available throughout the day via school email: fphillips@stilwellk12.org.  

Please keep in mind this project is designed for only 15-20 minutes of daily work. This is not, I repeat, THIS IS NOT, a project to stress over, OK? I told you at the beginning of the year if you showed up, if you stuck with me and made an effort you had nothing to worry about. That has not changed. Do not stress over this work. As a matter of fact, journaling is a proven stress reliever. Use this project as your daily opportunity to de-stress. 

Every day we will have a different reading selection followed by a journal entry. If you finish this assignment all at once you’re done for the year and there will be no consequence for turning the work in early. But I ask you to be more reflective than that. Consider the project as though your writing may one day be published in a book. Many of you expressed during the school year that you would love for our class to publish a book. That is what I’m hoping for from you; thoughtful writing that captures YOU as a unique individual and personal reflections on the time we spent together. This strange year will remain a special time in my life. I will never forget you. I will do my very best to publish our year in a book. This project is due back by May 4th. Either send it back to me by email or take snapshots and text or message it to me. As a last resort, you can take the paper packet back to the office. I greatly prefer to limit our potential exposure to each other by doing the work electronically. 

When all this is over we will celebrate the real way. IN PERSON. For now, let us finish what we started. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. Here we go.  

We would have ended this year by reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and Transcendentalism by Emerson and Thoreau, featuring the essays Self-Reliance & Civil Disobedience. Both of these books emphasize independence and finding freedom in nature, among other things. They also feature journal entries. I’ll include excerpts from these two books in each assignment. This is an excerpt from Into the Wild, Chapter 1:

“April 27th 1992
Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne, arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here. Please return all the mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.”
-Postcard received by Wayne Westerberg in Carthage, South Dakota.

Assignment
We took many surveys together over the year. These were designed so I could get to know you better as a human being, not just as a student in a class. Music was an important component of our communication with each other. That’s why the first survey asked what songs you wanted to listen to while we worked. Music is therapeutic.

I can’t name all the songs you gave me here but these are just a few I distinctly remember:

Stolen Dance, Milky Chance
Graduation, Juice Wrld
Try Me, James Brown
Beautiful Crazy, Luke Combs
Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
ChaCha Slide 🙁
Zephyr Song, Red Hot Chili Peppers
You Really Got A Hold On Me, Smokey Robinson
Whiskey Lullaby, Paisley & Krauss
Tuesday’s Gone, Lynyrd Skynyrd

Now that I know you I want to take the question a step further. What songs are you listening to right now? Consider the circumstances we find ourselves in. Do you listen to a particular song to help you through this strange and challenging time?

Journal: Make a playlist of at least 5 songs to tell your story of the past year. Choose one in particular that speaks to you. Write out a few lyrics and explain how they help you continue to move forward.

Here is my song:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020visions, chrome dreams, seniors 2020

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