Sequoyah, creator of Cherokee's "talking leaves"

Stories about Sequoyah, also know as George Gist, differ depending upon the source. Estimates of his birth date range from 1760 to 1776. He was born in Tennessee, the son of a Cherokee woman and an English fur trader. He died in 1843 in Texas or Mexico.

Sequoyah was a silversmith who became intrigued by the white man's ability to read and write. He spent twelve years developing a written language for the Cherokee. At first he tried a hieroglyphic system, assigning a symbol to each word. When he realized there were too many words for this to work, he switched to a syllabary, assigning a symbol to 86 different syllables. He endured ridicule, even from his family. One of his wives burned his early work, considering it witchcraft. Finally he had a workable system, which he taught his daughter, who learned it easily. Slowly it began to spread as people realized the potential. It was said that a person could learn to read within two weeks, and the literacy rate among the Cherokee soon surpassed that of the white settlers.

Today, Cherokee is the second most widely used Native American language and the only one that is growing. This is almost certainly due to the fact that this form of written language preserves the spoken language so that it hasn't died out as so many Native American languages have.

Sequoyah's feat is the only known instance of an individual creating a new written system of language. To learn more about the syllabary, check out this page.

In a state of wazi-wazi

It has not been a good couple days for daughter #2. Sunday nights and Monday mornings are always difficult, but this extended into Monday night and Tuesday morning. Tantrums, difficulties at school, difficulties with me and her sister, anguish . . . once again she's in a state of wazi-wazi.

I first learned about wazi-wazi from Gertud Mueller Nelson, a renown Christian educator and expert on family ritual, in her book To Dance with God:

Colin Turnbull, in his marvelous accounting of the Mbuti peoples of Zaire, passes along to us their understanding of the dangers in transition. The Mbuti see the person as being in the center of a sphere. In moving from here to there, the sphere moves too and offers protection. If movement in time or space is too sudden or vehement, we risk the danger of reaching the boundaries of the sphere too quickly, before the center has time to catch up. When this happens, a person becomes wazi-wazi, or disoriented and unpredictable. If you pierce through the safe boundaries of the sphere into the other world, you risk letting in something else which takes your place. If the Mbuti know of and guard against such violent and sudden motion—and that without the experience of automobiles or jet planes—what do we, the so-called civilized people of the world, know of our transitions in space and time? I think we are a whole society in a state of wazi-wazi, beside ourselves and possessed by impostor selves.

Many of my students suffer from wazi-wazi. One normally hyper and joyous student is taken over by a sullen and still impostor when he is faced with work that is too difficult or when he is pushed too quickly. Another suffers from a far more dramatic and long-lasting case. E., a child with autism, was speaking, reading, and writing when a new sibling joined his family. For a while he stopped all language. His sphere had been pierced in what to him was a violent and unpredictable way. But patient and loving parents and a great school are helping the real E. find his place back into his sphere.

Since I've come to understand this concept and its effect, I have tried to mitigate the jarring effect it has on my child and my students. Tonight, as she fell asleep, she held my hand and told me she loved me. My child was back and the impostor was gone, at least for awhile.

Tell me a story

Stories are important things in our lives. Families are held together by stories ("remember the time we . . ." or "Dad always . . . "). It's only when we know and share people's stories that we can claim them as friends. Religions are full of stories. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism share many stories; when the stories diverge, so do the religions. Stories can heal or inspire, and if we aren't careful, hurt. Stories are powerful. And every teacher needs to be a good storyteller.

Being a good storyteller is especially important for a tutor, who works with kids in their area of greatest weakness. Words are not my students' friends, and it's up to me to make those words friendlier. One way I do that is by telling the story behind the words. Knowing their backgrounds reveals fascinating tales. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Every word is a fossil poem." That is so true; you have to have the heart of an archeologist and dig until you discover the poem within the word. A great source is the Oxford English Dictionary. In the absence of that, a good online etymology dictionary works.

A great example is the word answer. This is a killer for students to spell. WHAT is that stupid w doing in there? I find the story fascinating (okay, so I'm a word geek!). It comes from the Old English andswaru, which was formed from two words, and (against) and -swaru (to swear). While now it simply means "to reply to a question", it once had the meaning of "making a sworn statement rebutting a charge". We see a vestige of that meaning in the phrase to answer to. Once students hear that story and can see the fossil of the word swear, I find most never misspell it again.

If your student is having trouble with a particular word, look for its relatives. Is your child having trouble keeping the to/too/two group straight? Teach to first. Next, point out two's relatives: twain, twin, twice, twelve, twenty. Even though we don't pronounce the w, think of it as two's family name. You can see it in the word between, which comes from Old English bi (by) and tweon (two each). There it is in twilight, in which the meaning seems to be "half-light", although we once also spoke of the morning twilight. Twine originally meant "a double thread", while twist once meant "to spin two threads together." Do you think your student will ever forget that two is the number word? Not after all those stories! Last, too can be added with "too many o's."

So go to it. Start digging—find those fossils, find the poems, and tell those kids a story!

I didn't plan to go THERE!

Today, one of my former students found out that her daughter has juvenile diabetes. It's always devastating to get a difficult diagnosis for one's child, no matter what it is. I was expecting my biological daughter to be dyslexic; with my genes, it would be surprising if she were not. And we cope with it fairly easily, although it did mean homeschooling her once she hit middle school. My other daughter's diagnosis of mental health issues was more unsettling. I had no idea what I was facing. I have many friends who have received difficult diagnoses about their children, be it cancer, autism (sometimes in multiple children), learning disabilities, or any of the other diagnoses that can turn one's world upside-down. They have all dealt with it with grace and courage. After the initial shock, they have rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work. Tiger moms (and dads) and activists rise from the ashes of dreams of an untroubled future. They have a new jargon, a new routine, and as one dad of a medically fragile child said to me last night, "It's old hat now." That doesn't mean it's always fun, but there is grace.

I've thought all morning about what to say to T. in response to her daughter's diagnosis. I've always been irritated by the well-meant words that God will never give you more than you can handle. First, I don't think God makes children sick. And second, you only have to watch the news to see that people often have more than they can handle. But I know that T. is a strong person, and I'm reminded of a story I heard at a dyslexia conference.

Imagine your delight. You are being transferred to the Rivera. All your life you have wanted to live in the south of France, and now you have your chance. In the depths of winter you will be eating wonderful French food and basking on the beaches. You've studied French for a long time in preparation; you have bought clothes appropriate to the climate. You climb on the plane and off you go.

The plane lands and you look out the window. Something is wrong. The landscape is blanketed with snow and, though it's just 5:00 pm, it's pitch dark outside. As you disembark from the plane, you are hit with an icy blast. You stand there in shock and your cell phone rings. There has been a change of plans and your new assignment is Norway.

You spend the next 24 hours in tears of rage and despair. It's not fair! Why did this happen to you? You don't have the right clothes. You don't speak the language. There are only five hours of daylight a day and it's freezing. The food is strange and you don't like it. You never had the slightest desire to go to Norway!! You go through the motions of finding a place to live, buying new clothes, starting your new job. Everything is harder because of the language barrier, the deep snow, the dark and the cold. Everything is a struggle and you are consumed with rage with the unfairness of it all.

Life goes on and you notice the days are getting longer. As spring comes, you start to look around. Oslo has many beautiful buildings that you never noticed before. The people are friendly and patient with your lack of Norwegian. As you sample more of the local cuisine, it loses its strangeness, and some of it is downright good. Summer comes and you visit the breathtaking fjords and enjoy the long hours of daylight and the temperate climate. You make friends and one day you realize you're okay with being in Norway. It's not where you wanted or planned to go, and you still feel a pang for what you are missing. But it's where you are and that can't be changed. You feel the anger dissipating. You know the winter and all its difficulties will come again, but you will enjoy the summer while it's here and cope with the winter when it comes. This is where you are.

So T., all I can tell you is that I'll pray for Abbey and hope for a cure. I hope your doctors are nice and knowledgeable. I hope you have a family and community that supports you. I can promise you that grace will come.

Which wolf?

Pete, D#2's unit coordinator at Wright School, realized I was a person who loved and needed stories, and at particularly low points in our time there would tell me a new one. Here is the most healing story he told me, one that guides my day-to-day interactions with my students, my children, and others I come into contact with:

An old Navajo grandfather was walking with his grandson. He looked down at the boy and said, "Son, inside you and every human there are two wolves. One is a good wolf and one is an evil wolf, and they are fighting to the death." They continued walking in silence until the boy cried, "But Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The grandfather replied simply, "the wolf you feed."

Here's hoping that every child has people in her life who feed the good wolf.