Teaching Notes: Mendocino Woodlands Journal: Learning to let go

Mendocino Woodlands, October 5, 1995

At the Mendocino Woodlands Jeff is not teaching, he is learning to let go, as we gather 200 ninth graders and staff, to bond, and to create a community. We are a disembodied, homeless high school lost in the woods.

Without a home, we come to the redwoods, a place where Jeff once lived, and worked, and we come here to do work, to build a community, a tribe, while he tries to forget what connects him to that hospital bed in the burn ward where his stepbrother pays the price for a drink, with his life. The nurses warned Jeff that the 10th day is always the worst, that's when the infection sets in. He counts the days with minute precision.

Jeff chooses his students, plays frisbee, does bunk patrol, he emcees, he runs the camp with the benevolent hand, never revealing the anguish he must face. He had said to me earlier, I might as well go where I am most useful, with the kids. I hate all that waiting. What good is it? He waits for the final phone call from the hospital to bring him the news.

We talk about our past, our families, our ancestors and we paint self-portraits. I cover the side of the lodge with portraits. The wall is becoming the focal point for each student, who brings a friend over to see the latest developments.

We cover the outside of the entire massive south wall with silk. The great silk wall of student faces glistens luminous in the early morning light, we are bonding. Students tell me of their secrets and write them down. One student from South Africa learns to compare the good life, supported by dark hands, whether black or Mexican. Another writes about the addicted father. The issues of abandonment arises again and and again.

They talk about all the houses they've lived in, the house we call home, and the ones we still dream of as home. I learned of the story of the boy whose father kidnapped him, took him to Yugoslavia, until the war force them home. He wears a Stetson hat, writes of secrets, he compares it to government. Always we deal with what passes for truth, and what we know not to be true. Subtext and context.

All of humanity's atrocities are manifest in this small tribal gathering in the deep woods. We share the stories, we bond together, while Jeff is learning to let go.