PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
"I instruct you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths." Proverbs 4:11
Teaching and learning are fascinating subjects to research and ponder. No matter what the discipline, learned instructors are faced with the task of motivating children to reach their peaks of intellectual prowess. This never ending process begins each fall and ends each spring in a multitude of graduations and dreams (often times deferred). Educators renew, refurbish, replenish, and resurrect ideas from the past and present them as the newest gloss on polished pieces of antiquity. Teachers labor and inspire, work feverishly, and retire. There may be no rhyme or reason to this season of education, but we continue to forge ahead in an attempt to reach a future that has always eluded us. There is no perfect way, or perfect path to success, only theories and effort in the loneliness of pursuit.
Do you even remember who your sophomore English teacher was?
For all those who teach here at LHS and with all apologies to Percy Shelley……..here is
Ode to the High School Writer
O, Wild, Whiny Writers, thou breath of August heat,
Visible presence negates the plan over time
Of teachers, like vultures devour dead meat.
Sardonic, sarcastic, satiric and sublime
Revengeful masses: O, why dost thou revile
The very nature of learning with dread?
Words rich in meaning and in style,
Each like a seed within the ground, they
Lie dormant in the mind. All the while
Excuses flow incessantly from pens today
Killing sprouting voices who could unite
In dazzling forms and distinct array
Writers, distracted by screens in the room
Awake and hear my pleas; Write, O, Write!
II
Thou on whose pulse the future rests
Rise up like oaks from beneath the verge.
Shake free from earthly desires and invest
Talents of waning generations, and purge
Black visages of delusionary gain,
While reading and yearning soon to surge
From a mediocrity malaise and bland retort
To rhetorical response and logical lens.
Shake the heavens and majestically abort
Trending tremors of dismal horizons,
Germinate, develop, read and prepare
Words, phrases with radiant sentences
To ascend the highest height. Writer beware,
When opportunity knocks, will you be there?
Dr. Cary Stelmachowicz