Rock Stories: Dedicated to Brady Swaffer who gave me the idea to write this.
I like rocks. I always have. Geology fascinated me at a young age; I had little collections of minerals and semi precious stone chips. Every time I went to a beach anywhere, I came home with my pockets full of rocks and shells. I still do!
After I began traveling in my late 40s, having a rock to remember special places by became a part of every trip. I have rocks and shells from every country I have been to, and they are all here with me in Panama. Yes, I shipped rocks to Panama; somehow they are the link between who I was and who I am. I also began collecting orbs: Lapis Lazuli, Machu Picchu stone, Quartz, Amethyst, Obsidian flecked with Mica, Carnelian, Rose Quartz. As time went on, I also began to collect more varieties: Jasper, Enhydro Agate, Snowflake Obsidian, Amazonite..and many others. One of the rocks that is visible in the vertical shot at 11:55 is an agate I found at Scott's Bay, NS during a rough time in my life. For some reason, it comforted me.
I used to keep some of my rocks on my desk in my classroom. These were special rocks; ones that had meaning to me and I used them to remind myself of how far I had come; how far I still had to go and how lucky I was to be where I was. It occurred to me that maybe, if I told the stories behind those rocks to my students, it might give them some inspiration, motivation or just something to think about. So McLeod's Rock stories became a fixture at the start of every class in a new semester. Some kids heard them 6 or more times; some even came back after they graduated and heard them again. I guess it was a good idea.
Jerusalem Stone. Everything in Jerusalem is built of or on this creamy, soft limestone. When you look at pictures of that ancient place, the golden hues of Jerusalem stone are everywhere. This is the stone of keeping dreams alive no matter what the odds. My first piece I gave to a former student who needed it more than I did. This piece was brought back to me from there by another former student whom I infected with the travel bug.
I had always dreamed of traveling; I was a history geek and simply had to see everything I had ever read about. However, real life had other ideas. In 1987, I moved back to NS from BC where I had taught for 5 years; I assumed, naturally, that I would have no problem getting a position in my home province. I was very wrong. So, I ended up out of teaching for 14 years. My first marriage broke up in 1998 and I supported myself as best I could by working in Call Centers. Some months I had $50 between paycheques. Not much left over to fulfill my dreams of traveling. I became very depressed and resigned myself to my life. I had no dreams anymore. I hit "rock" bottom.
They say that when you hit the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. Flash forward to 2006 - I met Darren in February, and in July we were in Italy. 2008 - Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Also in 2008, my first year of teaching at Prince Andrew High School, I became involved in a Holocaust Education program which led me to being granted a full scholarship to study at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as part of their International Seminar for Holocaust Educators. Me, there, fully funded, in Jerusalem. I have never had one month in my life that changed me as much as that one did. My dream that I had given up on was being handed to me on a silver platter. I had been wrong.
Since that time I have been back to Jerusalem for a conference and 2 weeks of exploring on my own (during a war), been to Poland to the Death Camps, back to Italy with 42 students, Greece with 39 students, Peru with 18 students, France on a Canadian History teachers' tour of Normandy, England, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Kenya and Tanzania. 2019 will take me to Amsterdam and then a Rhine and Danube River Cruise ending in Budapest. 2020 may see me in France with former students. I am living my dream.
So this stone reminds me never to give up on myself, my dreams, my goals. Just because I may not see them coming true on my timeline, does not mean that they will not come true someday. We can not know what future holds or what twists and turns our lives will take , so we just have to keep the faith! I challenged my students to get their own "rock", tangible or not, to help them hold on to a goal, big or small, that would help them get through the semester. Some of them did actually get a real rock.
Granite from Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria
In 2008, Darren and I did a 16 day tour of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. As part of that we went to 2 concentration camps: Dachau, near Munich and Mauthausen, near Vienna. They were very different: Dachau was more like a museum; Mauthausen ripped your guts out. The heart of Mauthausen was the quarry. If you are interested, look it up. This is where Dutch Jews were forced to mine granite for the monuments of the Third Reich. The 186 stairs on which you descend to the quarry are neat and easy to navigate now; research how they were made; the lives that were lost making them, the torture and death that awaited those who made it to the top.
Darren, our friend, Karen and I were the only ones in the quarry that day. They went back up leaving me alone. It is grassy now; a peaceful place of bird song and soft breezes. But the hair on the back of my neck was up; I had goose bumps and a chill surrounded me. I looked down, and there, in the grass at my feet were 3 pieces of granite. Just 3. I picked them up and knew I was supposed to do something with them. What? In solemn remembrance, I carried them up the Stairs of Death. I laid one on the Menorah Memorial. The other 2 I brought home.
In 2010, I was given a place on the March of the Living for Educators which took me to Berlin and then to Crakow and Warsaw, Poland where I toured the most heinous sites of evil in modern times. I took one of the pieces of granite with me and left it on the step of the boxcar at Birkenau. It just seemed fitting as Jews leave rocks on graves of loved ones to show that they have not forgotten them.
The third stone I still have. It reminds me of how lucky I am; how lucky all of us in Canada are, that we will never know what is like to have everything stripped from us right down to our identities and subjected to the insanity that human beings unchecked can unleash on the innocent. This was my message to my students; never take your your freedoms for granted; be grateful to those who have given you the quality of life you now enjoy and shoulder the responsibility to maintain those freedoms for future generations. It is a lesson that is very much needed these days.
Marble from the Forum in Rome
When one walks through the Forum Romana in Rome, two reactions usually predominate: Huh? It's just a pile of rocks (my husband) or Wow! What must this have looked like during the time of Caesar? (me). Both reactions are perfectly valid; it DOES look like just a jumble of ruins with no rhyme or reason. But if you KNOW what it was, it becomes a connection to one of the greatest civilizations that has ever been. One that, 2500 years later, still influences our daily lives in the Western World.
Now this piece of marble was NOT part of a building or anything important; it was just lying there on the path....waiting for me. And who am I to argue when the Universe plants tokens for me? Anyway, when I hold this piece of marble I am reminded of how fleeting our lives are, how fickle the gods can be while building us up, are also setting the stage for our fall. We see this time and time again on a grand scale as countries and their leaders battle for power, fueled by greed, as movie stars and politicians, sports figures and religious leaders are brought low by fate, their vices and their pride and also on a smaller, but still powerful, personal level, in our daily lives as our fortunes rise and fall. It all makes me feel so small, so inconsequential in the big picture, yet I know that, just as this piece of marble once was part of a beautiful temple or government building, I, too, fit into the grand scheme of things. That I have the power to hurt or to help; to build up or tear down; to shine or to cower in the darkness, and every choice that I make will, like the ripples in the pond, touch the lives of others. So I had best choose wisely. We all have that same power, and I challenged my students to realize their own uniqueness and to choose to use their power wisely. Some of them had never thought about themselves as having power, and I saw many changes in students when they realized that they did.
Lava from Mt. Vesuvius
On Aug 24, 2006, on the anniversary of its eruption in 79AD, I dragged my husband up to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius. He still thinks I was trying to do him in (ironically we live in the shadow of another sleeping volcano, Volcan Baru, in Panama). We walked the rim, smelled the sulfur hissing from the cracks and marveled at the view over the Bay of Naples. Roughly 6million people live in that area now with one road in and out. If Vesuvius ever pops its top again, there is going to be hell to pay.
This piece of lava brought home to my students in Canada how young we are in North America as a civilization; that, outside of the indigenous peoples, all of us came from "somewhere" else with a history and culture much, much older than we can fathom. History is no longer valued in our education system; it is considered not appropriate to learn about our European roots, or the roles that religions played in the development of the Western World, but that is for another rant. The point is that students no longer learn how their world came to be, and thus have no base for understanding it. This rock led to many questions and discussions both in class and out, at lunchtimes and after school. It made them challenge their perceptions of our place in the world and how we got here. If anything I said could make them ask hard questions, I considered it well done.
Amethyst
My birthstone; fairly common. I found this lovely piece in a shop at Hall's Harbour. It was not until I taught a course in Aboriginal Studies that I learned that the local Indigenous people, The Mi'kmaw, considered it to be the stone of a healer, an elder, a teacher. That gave my birthstone new meaning to me; it made me look at myself and my choice of profession with a different perspective. I realized the responsibility I had been given; perhaps I never had a choice; perhaps through all the twisty and rough roads that I had taken in my life, THIS was where I was meant to be. For my students, many of them in their last year of high school, this was about their journey and where it would take them. Some of them found their paths quickly; others are still searching. I just wanted them to understand that everything will come to them at the right time, maybe not as fast as they would hope, but when they were ready.
More than one student came to me to talk about my rocks. Many of them just wanted to hold them (especially the Jerusalem stone and the Lava). Some of them just wanted to share their stories. Some of my kids heard them so often they could, as Brady said, finish my sentences for me. Whatever it was about them that worked, I am thankful I told them. My rocks opened up lines of communication that brought me and my kids closer. I hope they remember them and me with as much love as I do them.
After I began traveling in my late 40s, having a rock to remember special places by became a part of every trip. I have rocks and shells from every country I have been to, and they are all here with me in Panama. Yes, I shipped rocks to Panama; somehow they are the link between who I was and who I am. I also began collecting orbs: Lapis Lazuli, Machu Picchu stone, Quartz, Amethyst, Obsidian flecked with Mica, Carnelian, Rose Quartz. As time went on, I also began to collect more varieties: Jasper, Enhydro Agate, Snowflake Obsidian, Amazonite..and many others. One of the rocks that is visible in the vertical shot at 11:55 is an agate I found at Scott's Bay, NS during a rough time in my life. For some reason, it comforted me.
I used to keep some of my rocks on my desk in my classroom. These were special rocks; ones that had meaning to me and I used them to remind myself of how far I had come; how far I still had to go and how lucky I was to be where I was. It occurred to me that maybe, if I told the stories behind those rocks to my students, it might give them some inspiration, motivation or just something to think about. So McLeod's Rock stories became a fixture at the start of every class in a new semester. Some kids heard them 6 or more times; some even came back after they graduated and heard them again. I guess it was a good idea.
Jerusalem Stone. Everything in Jerusalem is built of or on this creamy, soft limestone. When you look at pictures of that ancient place, the golden hues of Jerusalem stone are everywhere. This is the stone of keeping dreams alive no matter what the odds. My first piece I gave to a former student who needed it more than I did. This piece was brought back to me from there by another former student whom I infected with the travel bug.I had always dreamed of traveling; I was a history geek and simply had to see everything I had ever read about. However, real life had other ideas. In 1987, I moved back to NS from BC where I had taught for 5 years; I assumed, naturally, that I would have no problem getting a position in my home province. I was very wrong. So, I ended up out of teaching for 14 years. My first marriage broke up in 1998 and I supported myself as best I could by working in Call Centers. Some months I had $50 between paycheques. Not much left over to fulfill my dreams of traveling. I became very depressed and resigned myself to my life. I had no dreams anymore. I hit "rock" bottom.
They say that when you hit the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. Flash forward to 2006 - I met Darren in February, and in July we were in Italy. 2008 - Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Also in 2008, my first year of teaching at Prince Andrew High School, I became involved in a Holocaust Education program which led me to being granted a full scholarship to study at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as part of their International Seminar for Holocaust Educators. Me, there, fully funded, in Jerusalem. I have never had one month in my life that changed me as much as that one did. My dream that I had given up on was being handed to me on a silver platter. I had been wrong.
Since that time I have been back to Jerusalem for a conference and 2 weeks of exploring on my own (during a war), been to Poland to the Death Camps, back to Italy with 42 students, Greece with 39 students, Peru with 18 students, France on a Canadian History teachers' tour of Normandy, England, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Kenya and Tanzania. 2019 will take me to Amsterdam and then a Rhine and Danube River Cruise ending in Budapest. 2020 may see me in France with former students. I am living my dream.
So this stone reminds me never to give up on myself, my dreams, my goals. Just because I may not see them coming true on my timeline, does not mean that they will not come true someday. We can not know what future holds or what twists and turns our lives will take , so we just have to keep the faith! I challenged my students to get their own "rock", tangible or not, to help them hold on to a goal, big or small, that would help them get through the semester. Some of them did actually get a real rock.
Granite from Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria
In 2008, Darren and I did a 16 day tour of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. As part of that we went to 2 concentration camps: Dachau, near Munich and Mauthausen, near Vienna. They were very different: Dachau was more like a museum; Mauthausen ripped your guts out. The heart of Mauthausen was the quarry. If you are interested, look it up. This is where Dutch Jews were forced to mine granite for the monuments of the Third Reich. The 186 stairs on which you descend to the quarry are neat and easy to navigate now; research how they were made; the lives that were lost making them, the torture and death that awaited those who made it to the top.
Darren, our friend, Karen and I were the only ones in the quarry that day. They went back up leaving me alone. It is grassy now; a peaceful place of bird song and soft breezes. But the hair on the back of my neck was up; I had goose bumps and a chill surrounded me. I looked down, and there, in the grass at my feet were 3 pieces of granite. Just 3. I picked them up and knew I was supposed to do something with them. What? In solemn remembrance, I carried them up the Stairs of Death. I laid one on the Menorah Memorial. The other 2 I brought home.
In 2010, I was given a place on the March of the Living for Educators which took me to Berlin and then to Crakow and Warsaw, Poland where I toured the most heinous sites of evil in modern times. I took one of the pieces of granite with me and left it on the step of the boxcar at Birkenau. It just seemed fitting as Jews leave rocks on graves of loved ones to show that they have not forgotten them.
The third stone I still have. It reminds me of how lucky I am; how lucky all of us in Canada are, that we will never know what is like to have everything stripped from us right down to our identities and subjected to the insanity that human beings unchecked can unleash on the innocent. This was my message to my students; never take your your freedoms for granted; be grateful to those who have given you the quality of life you now enjoy and shoulder the responsibility to maintain those freedoms for future generations. It is a lesson that is very much needed these days.
Marble from the Forum in Rome
When one walks through the Forum Romana in Rome, two reactions usually predominate: Huh? It's just a pile of rocks (my husband) or Wow! What must this have looked like during the time of Caesar? (me). Both reactions are perfectly valid; it DOES look like just a jumble of ruins with no rhyme or reason. But if you KNOW what it was, it becomes a connection to one of the greatest civilizations that has ever been. One that, 2500 years later, still influences our daily lives in the Western World.
Now this piece of marble was NOT part of a building or anything important; it was just lying there on the path....waiting for me. And who am I to argue when the Universe plants tokens for me? Anyway, when I hold this piece of marble I am reminded of how fleeting our lives are, how fickle the gods can be while building us up, are also setting the stage for our fall. We see this time and time again on a grand scale as countries and their leaders battle for power, fueled by greed, as movie stars and politicians, sports figures and religious leaders are brought low by fate, their vices and their pride and also on a smaller, but still powerful, personal level, in our daily lives as our fortunes rise and fall. It all makes me feel so small, so inconsequential in the big picture, yet I know that, just as this piece of marble once was part of a beautiful temple or government building, I, too, fit into the grand scheme of things. That I have the power to hurt or to help; to build up or tear down; to shine or to cower in the darkness, and every choice that I make will, like the ripples in the pond, touch the lives of others. So I had best choose wisely. We all have that same power, and I challenged my students to realize their own uniqueness and to choose to use their power wisely. Some of them had never thought about themselves as having power, and I saw many changes in students when they realized that they did.
Lava from Mt. Vesuvius
On Aug 24, 2006, on the anniversary of its eruption in 79AD, I dragged my husband up to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius. He still thinks I was trying to do him in (ironically we live in the shadow of another sleeping volcano, Volcan Baru, in Panama). We walked the rim, smelled the sulfur hissing from the cracks and marveled at the view over the Bay of Naples. Roughly 6million people live in that area now with one road in and out. If Vesuvius ever pops its top again, there is going to be hell to pay.
This piece of lava brought home to my students in Canada how young we are in North America as a civilization; that, outside of the indigenous peoples, all of us came from "somewhere" else with a history and culture much, much older than we can fathom. History is no longer valued in our education system; it is considered not appropriate to learn about our European roots, or the roles that religions played in the development of the Western World, but that is for another rant. The point is that students no longer learn how their world came to be, and thus have no base for understanding it. This rock led to many questions and discussions both in class and out, at lunchtimes and after school. It made them challenge their perceptions of our place in the world and how we got here. If anything I said could make them ask hard questions, I considered it well done.
Amethyst
My birthstone; fairly common. I found this lovely piece in a shop at Hall's Harbour. It was not until I taught a course in Aboriginal Studies that I learned that the local Indigenous people, The Mi'kmaw, considered it to be the stone of a healer, an elder, a teacher. That gave my birthstone new meaning to me; it made me look at myself and my choice of profession with a different perspective. I realized the responsibility I had been given; perhaps I never had a choice; perhaps through all the twisty and rough roads that I had taken in my life, THIS was where I was meant to be. For my students, many of them in their last year of high school, this was about their journey and where it would take them. Some of them found their paths quickly; others are still searching. I just wanted them to understand that everything will come to them at the right time, maybe not as fast as they would hope, but when they were ready.
More than one student came to me to talk about my rocks. Many of them just wanted to hold them (especially the Jerusalem stone and the Lava). Some of them just wanted to share their stories. Some of my kids heard them so often they could, as Brady said, finish my sentences for me. Whatever it was about them that worked, I am thankful I told them. My rocks opened up lines of communication that brought me and my kids closer. I hope they remember them and me with as much love as I do them.
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