Linda's Literary Home

Tag: education

  • D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    Image:  D. H. Lawrence 

    D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    In D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” an educator is dramatizing the lackluster performance of the students in the classroom.  The teacher’s strength is being sapped by many vain attempts to teach pupils who refuse to learn.

    Introduction with Text of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    D. H. Lawrence’s published collection titled Love Poems includes the poem, “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” in the section labeled “The Schoolmaster.”  Two other sections of the collection are “Love Poems” and “Dialect Poems.” The collection of poems, published in New York by Mitchell Kinerley, appeared in 1915.  

    Rime Scheme

    D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” contains a handful of rimes scattered throughout the piece.  These rimes seem to occur accidentally, and therefore, do not rise to the status of an actual “rime scheme.”   These seemingly random rimes, however, do play well in suggesting the level ennui of the teacher.

    Alliteration

    In the first stanza of D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” the following lines feature what upon first impression might be considered “alliteration.” The initial consonants are capitalized, bolded, and italicized for easy recognition:

    Line 1:  When Will the bell ring, and end this Weariness?
    Lines 4 and 5: they Hate to Hunt, / I can Haul them
    Lines 6 and 7: to Bearthe Brunt / Of the Books
    Lines 7, 8, and 9:  Score / Of Several insults of blotted pages and Scrawl / Of Slovenly
    Line 11:  Woodstacks Working Weariedly

    Even though those lines feature repetition of initial consonantal sounds, the poetic purpose for the use of alliteration is not fulfilled in any of those consonant groups, and therefore that true poetic alliteration is not actually employed in this poem.

    Poets and other creative writers employ “alliteration” in both poetry and prose to create a musically rhythmic sound. Alliterative sound renders the flow of words a beauty which attracts the auditory nerves making the language both more enjoyable and more easily remembered.  

    None of this poetic purpose is fulfilled in Lawrence’s lines with the assumed alliteration, especially lines 4–5, 6–7,  and 7–8–9, which spill over onto the next line, thus separating the alliterative group.

    The Six-Stanza Draft of This Poem

    An earlier draft of Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” featuring six stanzas appears on some internet sites.  The six-stanza version is far inferior to the masterfully revised two-stanza version, which is the focus of this commentary. 

    Readers who encounter that earlier six-stanza draft should compare it to the two-stanza, revised version.  They will then understand that the revised two-stanza version is more polished, succinct, and includes the useful metaphor of likening the soul to embers of a fire.  

    Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson

    When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
    How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
    My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
    Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
    I can haul them and urge them no more.
    No more can I endure to bear the brunt
    Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
    Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
    Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
    I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
    Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

    And shall I take
    The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
    Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
    Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
    Of their insults in punishment? – I will not!
    I will not waste myself to embers for them,
    Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
    For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
    Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
    Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
    It all for them, I should hate them –
    – I will sit and wait for the bell.

    Reading of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”  

    Commentary on “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    The bored and labor-weary instructor in “Last Lesson of the Afternoon” is dramatizing the fatigue that has resulted from trying to teach lackluster pupils who resist learning.  He, thus, makes a vow to himself that he will simply stop the punishing of his own soul; he will stop wasting his time and effort, trying to teach those who do not want to learn.

    First Stanza: Student Dogs

    When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
    How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
    My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
    Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
    I can haul them and urge them no more.
    No more can I endure to bear the brunt
    Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
    Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
    Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
    I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
    Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

    The drama played out in this poem begins and concludes with the teacher asserting that he will simply sit and wait for the bell to ring—in a sense, he is likening his own behavior to his uninspired pupils. 

    The speaker metaphorically compares his lackluster students to dogs that pull hard and attempt to wrench free from a leash.  The students resist his attempt to teach them; thus, the dog metaphor describes their behavior. They have no desire to learn, and the teacher thus has no desire to continue trying to instruct them. 

    He has arrived at the notion that he can no longer in good faith continue this farce of teaching and learning that is not taking place. He wishes to free himself from the same situation that he thinks his students are undergoing.

    Apparently, this teacher does not possess the patience and love of the young required for working with students. He has become too weary, and he holds no empathy for these students who continue to turn in “slovenly work.” 

    He has come to loathe the job of having to correct the many badly written papers that confront him time and time again. He has become bone tired, and he complains that the whole situation serves neither him nor his students.

    The teacher then declares that it does not matter if they are able to write about what they lack interest in anyway. He finds the situation pointless. Bitterly, he complains repeatedly about the ultimate purpose of all this useless activity.

    Second Stanza: Unjustified Expenditure of Energy

    And shall I take
    The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
    Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
    Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
    Of their insults in punishment? – I will not!
    I will not waste myself to embers for them,
    Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
    For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
    Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
    Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
    It all for them, I should hate them –
    – I will sit and wait for the bell.

    The teacher then assumes that even if he commits all of his energy and efforts to these students, he cannot justify to himself the expenditure of his energy.  His soul is being wasted and tortured in attempting to teach the unteachable. He senses that he is being insulted by the students’ lack of motivation and desire to achieve.

    He has determined that there is no value in struggling to impart knowledge to a bunch of seemingly braindead urchins who possess not a shred of desire to acquire an education.  This teacher proclaims his intention to stop using up his soul power in vain attempts to teach these recalcitrant unteachables. 

    The speaker/teacher looks fate in the eye and finds that no matter what he does and no matter what they do, it all goes down to the same nothingness. Whether he teaches or not, it does not matter. Whether they learn or not, it does not matter.

    The weary teacher likens his life to “embers” of a fire that is slowly burning out; he insists that he will not allow himself to become a simple ash heap from burning himself out while attempting to accomplish the impossible.  If sleep will rake the embers clear, he will, instead, save his energy for more worthwhile activities that will actually enhance his life, instead of draining it of vitality. 

    He implies that as a teacher, he is obligated to assume responsibly with all his strength, but by doing so, he wastes himself on a futile mission. Thus, he makes a vow to himself to cease this purposeless activity.  Nothing he does can influence these poor souls, so why, he asks himself, should he continue to attempt it?  Why torture himself as he also tortures the undeliverable?

    The speaker/teacher can no longer care, if, in fact, he ever did. He feels that the effort is not worth it. He must move on. Vaguely yet surely, he is implying that teachers are born, not made.  The disgruntled teacher has arrived at his perfect, liberating thought: like the students who resist learning, he has become the teacher who will resist teaching. 

    He will “sit and wait for the bell,” just as his students are doing. If they do not want to learn, then he concludes, why should he want to teach?  He has finished with wasting his efforts on a futile activity. 

    The struggle between the unwilling students and the unenthusiastic teacher ends in a something of a stalemate. The image of them both sitting and waiting for the bell to ring signals a sad scenario of soulless sterility.

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  • Malcolm M. Sedam’s Poem “The Hill Maiden”

    Image: Malcolm M. Sedam

    Malcolm M. Sedam’s “The Hill Maiden”

    In his poem, “The Hill Maiden,” Malcolm M. Sedam has created a speaker voicing cheerful vaticination that his teenage angst-ridden protégé will one day shed her nihilism and burst into life affirming joy.  The best teachers are those who can inspire as well as instruct their students.  This poem represents a stellar example of that kind of inspirational educator.

    Introduction and Text of “The Hill Maiden”

    Malcolm M. Sedam‘s “The Hill Maiden” features a teacher dramatizing his observations about a particularly inquisitive but melancholy student.  His ultimate purpose is to instill in the student the notion that she will ultimately be able to appreciate the life that she seems to disdain.

    The poem plays out in three movements of unrimed stanzas.  This organization allows the speaker to touch lightly on the physical reality of the subject but then move more intensely to the mental and finally the spiritual possibility of the subject’s inclinations. 

    Because the speaker can only infer certain facts about his student, the poem remains metaphorically and imagistically implicative  instead of unequivocally literal.  For example, the teacher has no exact idea what the student does at her home; thus he places her in an image of “moving among the phantom rocks of reverie.”  

    The teacher/speaker knows from the negativity the student has been expressing to him that she mentally resides among hardness that causes her to imagine that things are worse than they are.

    Mentally she travels like a rocket through her ghostly musings until night fall when she sleeps but likely gets little rest, accounting for the nervous, brittle energy the educator perceives in his young scholar.

    Likely the adolescent girl is simply suffering the turbulence of teenage angst through which most individuals of that age group must travel.  But the best, most effective teachers are those who can inspire as well as instruct their students.  This poem represents a stellar example of that kind of inspirational educator.

    As an educator, Mr. Malcolm M. Sedam wrote poems to many of his students, always with the goal of inspiring them to high thinking and plain living.  Mr. Sedam once said he felt that his function as an educator was “to kick the dirt off of his students.”  By that he meant to help them see life more clearly without the fog of stereotypes, prejudice, and provincialism.  

    The Hill Maiden

    (for Linda, over in the valley)

    She is moving among the phantom
    Rocks of reverie hurtling through
    By mind bringing days into darkness
    Where the pull of growth rings
    The heart and spurs the soul

    Where her wish strings questions
    In the mysterious night of snow
    Bringing a promise that only the hills can sing.
    Her smile waits behind a frown of swords
    That rend her days

    In the melancholy of the deep valley
    Of dreams where she lives among flowers
    Gathering her moods that may bring peace
    Once the sorrow of lonely distance
    Has closed on hands—

    The same hands that Zen-like reach
    To answer each knock at the door of her heart
    Broken to be mended by tender time.
    Her mind is speeding through a galaxy
    Of intensity where the blood rose

    Will speak to her frozen will
    All forgiven by decree in warring winds—
    The nature of her plight?
    Without wings
    She will still spring into flight.

    Commentary on “The Hill Maiden”

    Malcolm M. Sedam’s “The Hill Maiden” features a teacher, who is also a practicing poet, dramatizing his observance of an inquisitively intelligent but extremely melancholy student.  

    His only purpose is to instill in the student the notion that she will ultimately be able to appreciate the life that she seems now to disdain.

    First Movement:  Dreaming amongst the Hills

    She is moving among the phantom
    Rocks of reverie hurtling through
    By mind bringing days into darkness
    Where the pull of growth rings
    The heart and spurs the soul

    Where her wish strings questions
    In the mysterious night of snow
    Bringing a promise that only the hills can sing.

    The speaker begins by placing the object of his speculative musing in an image that implies sharp but dream-like rigidity.  Rocks appear ghost-like through a dream-scape as they bewilder the mental musings of the young girl with whom the mature educator is engaging both as a poetry mentor as well as a teacher.

    Teachers often counsel their students who seek out their advice and direction even in issues outside of the academic sphere as well as within the educational arena.  Those teachers who must essentially become counselors will either direct the students to other professionals, or they will attempt to offer their own gleanings from their life experience.

    The teacher in this poem demonstrates that he is the latter kind of teacher, and he has given the mind of the young student some serious analysis.  Thus he not only describes her environment, but he also speculates and then foreshadows what is likely to befall the girl once she is able to erase her current adolescent fog.

    Until that glowing day arrives, however, the speaker sees that the girl’s maturing process weighs heavily on her heart and soul.  She is full of questions brought on by the mystery of life.  

    The “snow” that brings beauty as it covers the hills also brings bitter cold and slippery conditions the cause the girl to miss the music that her hill-valley home affords her.

    By pointing out these images of beauty and placing them a context of mystery and difficulty, the speaker hopes to allow his charge to contemplate the possibility that life is real and offers hope to those who search its reaches with an open mind and cheerful heart.

    Second Movement:  Frowning Swords

    Her smile waits behind a frown of swords
    That rend her days

    In the melancholy of the deep valley
    Of dreams where she lives among flowers
    Gathering her moods that may bring peace
    Once the sorrow of lonely distance
    Has closed on hands—

    The same hands that Zen-like reach
    To answer each knock at the door of her heart
    Broken to be mended by tender time.

    The speaker has observed the teen’s unwillingness to show a cheerful countenance.   Her bitterness “behind a frown of swords” likely often gives the mentor a shudder at the likelihood that the girl is suffering intensely.

    No doubt, he believes that at this point in her life, she should be dancing merrily among “flowers” and allowing her sorrowful moods to dissolve in the “deep valley of dreams.”

    But again, he returns to prognostication that once she has learned to fold her hands in wonder and listen to the love that knocks at the “door of her heart,” her melancholy will be rendered null and void as “tender time” moves her through the rough spots of her anguish.

    Again, the speaker chooses beauty—”flowers gathering”—to balance the “frown.”  He offers the image of the heart’s door to harmonize with the environment that will reach her with the “Zen-like” hands of mystery and the ultimate gain-of-wisdom.  

    Like a Zen koan, the riddle of life will remain before her as she continues to search for answers to her perplexing questions.  

    Third Movement:  Springing into Flight

    Her mind is speeding through a galaxy
    Of intensity where the blood rose

    Will speak to her frozen will
    All forgiven by decree in warring winds—
    The nature of her plight?
    Without wings
    She will still spring into flight.

    Finally, the speaker makes his most striking vaticination after asserting that his young charge has a strong mind but also a tender heart that is quick to show intense emotion.  

    That the “blood rose” will speak itself undeniably to the girl’s will portends that all of her negativity and nihilism will be “forgiven” as she continues to navigate through the conflicts that life bestows on all searching souls.

    Then the speaker offers the question that he is likely very content to answer.  The frustrating situation that befuddles the young scholar’s mind and heart has been implied by all the imagery that went before, but then what will eventually be the path chosen by and/or for the student?   

    She will be able to navigate through all the trials and tribulations as a bird that so easily lifts it wings to the wind and takes to the air through the abundant space of sky.

    The speaker is not so naïve as to insist that such navigation will come easily, but he does remain assured that the path will open to the girl, and she will become willing to follow it. Thus the speaker can conclude affirmatively that “Without wings, she will still spring into flight.”

    Offered by a beloved and well-respected mentor, such faith in a young scholar’s ability to navigate life is bound to redound in blessings, despite the pitfalls and rough spots that her life, no doubt, will place sphinx-life before her mind and heart.

  • Malcolm M. Sedam Poetry Memorial

    Image: Malcolm M. Sedam

    ~Dedicated to the memory and poetry of Malcolm M. Sedam~

    Features

    Life Sketch of Malcolm M. Sedam
    Tribute to Mr. Malcolm M. Sedam
    Miami Memorial Tribute to Malcolm Marcene Sedam
    Mr. Sedam’s Poem to a Girl He Called “The Hill Maiden”
    Poetry Collections:Between Wars, The Man in Motion, The Eye of the Beholder

    Life Sketch of Malcolm M.  Sedam

    The late poet, Malcolm M. Sedam, exemplifies the Socratic command implied in the oft-quoted, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

    Fighter Pilot

    Malcolm M. Sedam served in World War II as a fighter pilot, flying bombing missions in the Pacific theatre. Then he settled down to a life in business and started a family. His war experience served to enervate him, and he began to question the efficacy of devoting his life solely to making money.

    Businessman

    Mr. Sedam asked himself, “How many suits can a man wear in one day?” So he decided he had to make his life about more than business and money. He returned to school, and, as William Stafford would say, he revised his life.

    Teacher

    Mr. Sedam traded in his life as a successful businessman to become a teacher to make his life more meaningful. He taught American history, English, and creative writing at Centerville Senior High School in Centerville, Indiana, from 1962-1964.

    After receiving his M. A. degree from Ball State University, he taught at an extension of Miami University at Middletown, Ohio, until his death in 1976. Miami-Middletown offers a Malcolm M. Sedam English scholarship and awards in creative writing named for the beloved professor, the Malcolm M. Sedam Awards.

    Poet

    But Malcolm Sedam, called Mac by his friends, did not only serve as a teacher; he also wrote poetry and plays. He published three collections of poems: Between Wars, The Man in Motion, and The Eye of the Beholder. His play The Twentieth Mission has been performed at Playhouse in the Park, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and on many college campuses.

    “It happened to me”

    Mr. Sedam’s second collection of poems, The Man in Motion, brings together an eclectic assemblage from the personal “Nostalgia” to the political “For Reasons Unknown.”  The book was published in 1971 by a small now-defunct Chronicle Press in Franklin, Ohio, but it is a smart, handsome publication, and the poems offer a delightful journey into the life of the man who flew fighter planes in World War II and then later became a teacher and poet.

    In the preface, Mr. Sedam claims his poetic experience by stating, “Let me speak for my own poetry that it happened to me that I lived, enjoyed or suffered every scene and that these poems are the essence of these experiences.” He was a passionate man, who demanded from himself that he live every moment to the height of its possibility.

    Continuing his introduction, Mr. Sedam declares, “Hopefully, for art’s sake, the poems will give pleasure and satisfaction both to the critic and the average reader, but in a test of belief, I seek that man, any man (critic or average reader) who values flesh and blood feelings above clever word manipulation.” He strove always for the authentic, the genuine, to the best of his ability.

    Tribute to Mr. Malcolm M.  Sedam

    Entering my junior year at Centerville Senior High School in the fall of 1962, I was privileged to study with a teacher, Mr. Malcolm M. Sedam, who employed collegiate pedagogical methods.  His teaching style fostered critical thinking in addition to learning the facts about the subject. 

    The subject was American history.  Mr. Sedam had served as a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater in World War II.  He attributed his worldview that urged him live each moment to the fullest to his war experience; he wanted to pass that urgency on to students.  Thus, he felt that critical thinking was the most important practice that high school students needed.

    Conducting the required junior year course in American history as a college course, Mr. Sedam discussed each issue in detail with background information, including additional facts not dealt with in the textbook.  He connected the dots, so to speak, and encouraged us to ask questions.  He also allowed us to respond and make connections during class discussion.  He required outside reading as well, with oral and written reports.

    Testing consisted of two parts: short identification of five to seven terms and three essay topics; we were required to write on two of the three.  This method required us to organize material and make connections to demonstrate that we understood what happened, how, and why—not merely when. 

    This method also forced us write complete sentences, instead of just selecting answers from a multiple-choice test or merely fill in blanks, as most high school tests were fashioned.  This methodology gave us practice in expository writing that usually had to wait until college.

    During that same school year, Mr. Sedam often ended a class session by reading his poetry to our class, and a number of students expressed interest in a creative writing class.  Mr. Sedam was able to offer that creative writing class the next year, so as a senior, I again sat for a class with Mr. Sedam.

    My specialty was poetry; I had dabbled in poetry writing since my grade-school days at Abington Township Elementary School.  I had not really thought of what I wrote as poetry, but having a rôle model in Mr. Sedam awakened in me the aspiration to write real poetry.  Mr. Sedam encouraged us to write in the genre that most interested; thus, I began my study of poetry, and I have continued studying it, writing it, and writing about it ever since those high school days.

    I had the privilege of studying with Mr. Sedam for only two years in high school from 1962-1964.  Mr. Sedam later became professor of English at Miami University at Middletown, OH.  The following is a tribute to Professor Sedam from one of his Miami students; it appears on the Miami page titled 10 Reasons We Love Miami:

    Professor Malcolm Sedam was an English professor at Miami Middletown. He taught the art of writing from the viewpoint of a life fully lived, and believed true written communication came from the soul rather than from the end of a pen. Whether he was at the head of the classroom or sharing a table in the student break area, Professor Sedam entertained us with his stories of flying P-51 Mustangs in the Pacific during World War II, his childhood experiences growing up in Indiana, and other adventures. My two years in his classroom became a place to express passionate perspectives – a skill that carried me through college, career, and life. – John Atkins ’79, Stafford, Va.

    It is with great appreciation for Mr. Sedam’s example and encouragement of my writing that I offer this memorial to my former American history and creative writing teacher.