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Final Sentence of the 5-Paragraph
JBS Statement of Philosophy
“Our approach to education,
reinforced by the ethical and
interpersonal ideals we foster,
enables our graduates to discover
lifetime fulfillment in
meaningful work and
commitment.” (emphasis added)
“The greatest good luck in life for
anybody, is to have something that
means everything to you . . . To do
what you want to do, and to find that
people will pay you for doing it . . .”
(Henry Moore)
Cultivating a unique gift?
“It is salvation if one can step forth
from the clutter of one’s mind into
that open space—that almost holy
space—called work.”
(Mary Oliver)
Pursuing an almost sacred focus?
True vocation is the place “where your
deep gladness meets the world's deep
need.”
(Frederick Buechner)
Serving others?
Finding “flow”?
“The work’s possibilities excited
them; the field’s complexities
fired their imaginations. The
caring suggested the tasks; the
tasks suggested the schedules.
They learned their fields and
then loved them.”
(Annie Dillard)
Helicopter View
of the Unit
We open with a full-period discussion of
the central question by examining some
positive and negative experiences that
we have each had while working.
• felt useful
• did not notice time passing
• enjoyed co-workers
• knew that the work mattered
• could chart own progress
• felt a sense of mastery
• had fun while doing it
• felt respected by boss/superiors
• learned new skills
• not enough to do
• work felt meaningless
• mistreated by boss/superiors
• micromanaged
• minutes passed with excruciating
slowness
• annoying or unkind
co-workers
• no sense of mastery or purpose
• work too difficult or too easy
Some Guiding Questions
1. What conditions make work meaningful?
2. Can all work be meaningful?
3. How can we figure out if our work is meaningful?
4. Is the definition of “meaningful work” situation and
person specific, or are there certain universals?
5. How does meaningful work connect to cultural
expectations and identity issues?
6. Is meaningful work always prestigious or highly valued?
7. Why is it important to pursue meaningful work?
Week of 10/31
Day 1: poems about work and “Selling Manure” (Campbell)
Day 2: Levine poems
Day 3: “From the Poets in the Kitchen” (Marshall)
Friday, Parent Conferences: No School
Week of 11/7
Day 1: “Quitting the Paint Factory” (Slouka)
Day 2: “I Stand Here Ironing” (Olsen)
Day 3: “Winter Work” (Snyder)
Day 4: In-Class Writing: thesis-driven analysis of any of the
short works—outlines required
Week of 11/14
Day 1: final project introduction; film clips about work
Day 2: Nickel and Dimed, 1-40
Day 3: Nickel and Dimed, 41-80
Day 4: final project proposals due; Nickel and Dimed, 81-120
Week of 11/21
Day 1: guest speaker
Day 2: guest speaker
Wednesday and Thursday and Friday: Happy Thanksgiving
Week of 11/28
Day 1: Nickel and Dimed, 121-160
Day 2: Nickel and Dimed, 161-200
Day 3: Nickel and Dimed, 201-235; more film clips about work
Day 4: project work
Week of 12/5
Day 1: project work
Day 2: project presentations
Day 3: project presentations
Day 4: Meaningful Work Projects Due; holiday activities
Poetry about Work
“Writing a Resume” (Symborska)
“Lying in a Hammock…” (Wright)
“Dolor” (Roethke), “Monday” (Collins)
“Hay for the Horses” (Snyder)
“A Death at the Office,” “They Had Torn Off My Face
at the Office,” “Myrtle” (Kooser)
“To Be of Use” (Piercy)
“You Can Have It,” “Coming Close” (Levine)
A Death at the Office
by Ted Kooser (b. 1939)
The news goes desk to desk
like a memo: Initial
and pass on. Each of us marks
Surprised or Sorry.
The management came early
and buried her nameplate
deep in her desk. They have boxed up
the Midol and Lip-Ice,
the snapshots from home,
wherever it was—nephews
and nieces, a strange, blurred cat
with fiery, flashbulb eyes
as if it grieved. But who grieves here?
We have her ballpoints back,
her bud vase. One of us tears
the scribbles from her calendar.
Myrtle
by Ted Kooser
Wearing her yellow rubber slicker,
Myrtle, our Journal carrier,
Has come early through rain and
darkness
To bring us the news.
A woman of thirty or so,
with three small children at home,
she’s told me she likes
a long walk by herself in the morning.
And with pride in her work,
she’s wrapped the news neatly in plastic—
a bread bag, beaded with rain,
that reads WONDER.
From my doorway I watch her
flicker from porch to porch as she goes,
a yellow candle flame
no wind or weather dare extinguish.
“It is Levine who has been
direct about one of
democracy’s most taboo
subjects: the fact that
members of one segment of
humanity are doomed to
soulless, unreflective,
unfulfilling work, while those
of another, infinitely smaller
segment are blessed with the
opportunity to live out their
destiny in their work.”
(Lee Siegel, New York Times
writer and social critic)
Coming Close
by Philip Levine
Take this quiet woman, she has been
standing before a polishing wheel
for over three hours, and she lacks
twenty minutes before she can take
a lunch break. Is she a woman?
Consider the arms as they press
the long brass tube against the buffer,
they are striated along the triceps,
the three heads of which clearly show.
Consider the fine dusting of dark down
above the upper lip, and the beads
of sweat that run from under the red
kerchief across the brow and are wiped
away with a blackening wrist band
in one odd motion a child might make
to say No! No! You must come closer
to find out, you must hang your tie
and jacket in one of the lockers
in favor of a black smock, you must
be prepared to spend shift after shift
hauling off the metal trays of stock,
bowing first, knees bent for a purchase,
then lifting with a gasp, the first word
of tenderness between the two of you,
then you must bring new trays of dull
unpolished tubes. You must feed her,
as they say in the language of the place.
Make no mistake, the place has a language,
and if by some luck the power were cut,
the wheel slowed to a stop so that you
suddenly saw it was not a solid object
but so many separate bristles forming
in motion a perfect circle, she would turn
to you and say, "Why?" Not the old why
of why must I spend five nights a week?
Just, "Why?" Even if by some magic
you knew, you wouldn't dare speak
for fear of her laughter, which now
you have anyway as she places the five
tapering fingers of her filthy hand
on the arm of your white shirt to mark
you for your own, now and forever.
“In the end, the woman rubs her dirty hand
against the onlooker’s clean white shirt. And
while this gesture could be seen as a cry for help,
in my opinion she is making a statement. She
wants to make a mark on the man that he cannot
ignore, to show him that she is real and not just a
cog in the machine, or a bristle on the wheel, as
Levine puts it. She wants to make him question
what he values, whether his shirt or his
cleanliness truly matters. And through the poem,
Levine asks us if we are similarly willing to come
close enough to be marked by those less
fortunate.”
from one student’s analytical response
to “Coming Close”
Essays about Work
“Quitting the Paint Factory” (Slouka)
“From the Poets in the Kitchen” (Marshall)
“Selling Manure” (Campbell)
“Selling Manure”
Campbell does a great job of reminding us
that “any job is an important job, whether it
is selling manure or selling insurance . . .
And even the smelliest job has its rewards.”
In the space below and on the back of this
sheet, write several paragraphs about a job
or work that you have done (paid or unpaid),
that may have initially seemed awful, but in
retrospect came to have value.
sample in-class writing prompt
sample student topics
• maintaining the lawn
• cleaning the club tennis courts
• running the cash register at a Lebanese Deli
• taking care of the house all summer while my
parents worked
• chopping wood in the brutal cold
• bussing tables, hostessing
• helping my grandfather sort decades’ worth of
memorabilia
• taking care of a dozen 9-year-old boys at
camp
• serving frozen custard
• washing and staining a deck
In-Class Writing: Meaningful Work
Write a personal response to one of the
short works we have read thus far; for
instance, you could write about your own
poets in the kitchen, or write your own
version of “the virtues of idleness,” or your
own essay about doing a job you felt
perfectly fit or horribly unfit to do.
another writing prompt:
memorable student topics/comments
on running the fryers versus selling lemonade at the
Forest Park soul music festival: “work with minimal
human interaction can feel like its own form of incarceration.”
on hanging out at the barbershop: “for me, the
barbershop is my kitchen, and the people who get their
haircuts there are the poets.”
on cutting the grass: “in a sea of lawns that are
carefully maintained by lawn service crews, my yard is an
island . . . The next time I sit on the throne of the riding
mower surveying my domain, I will feel a sense of
accomplishment and gratitude for my parents forcing me
to do this work.”
on memories from childhood with mom:
“When I was a little kid my mother was without a
doubt my best friend. My mom, who stopped
working when I was born, was a part of every
moment of every day for the majority of the first
seven years of my life. She woke me up, got me
dressed, made me breakfast, played with me, took
me to the park, played with me at the park, took me
home, fed me dinner, and then put me to bed. My
mom was my entire world.”
on the benefits of idleness: “Oftentimes my
happiest moments are when I am with my friends
doing, for lack of a better word, nothing. There is no
sense of urgency to go anywhere, or talk about
anything, and instead we just sit there, maybe both
looking at a frog together . . . these moments are the
ones I remember most fondly.”
Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting By
in America
by Barbara
Ehrenreich
(Picador, 2001)
raising consciousness, teaching empathy,
and engendering lively debate
sample student survey responses—
lessons learned from Nickel and Dimed:
“I have always felt lucky to have this education, but this unit
intensified that awareness and made me appreciate those that do the
work to make my life work.”
“I want to remember to treat others as people, with the compassion and
humanity they deserve.”
“I learned that the benefits we enjoy as privileged middle class
Americans is largely due to the working class people of America and
the world. And we really must not forget that they are fellow humans,
equal to us in every way except opportunity and financial status. They
are not invisible.”
“I gained more sympathy for those who are working paycheck to
paycheck.”
Movie Clips about Work
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Life as a House (2001)
In America (2002)
Walk the Line (2005)
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
Chef (2015)
Guest Speakers
Harry Weber (St. Louis sculptor)
Rabbi Randy Fleisher (JBS parent and Rabbi at Central Reformed Congregation)
Mary Stillman(JBS parent and founder of the Hawthorn School)
Ruben Rosario-Rodriguez(JBS parent and SLU Theology Professor)
Semester-End Project
What is Meaningful Work?
Semester-End Project
Basic Assignment:
Design and complete a project that answers
the above question. This project is worth 150
points. I want to give you wide latitude in
designing and developing this project, but
general requirements are as follows . . .
Some ideas (these are only ideas…I am ready to be
amazed and delighted by your creativity…)
Interview a series of people (friends, acquaintances,
neighbors, etc.) about the work that they do each day—
generate a series of thoughtful questions and then either
film or record your interviews. Finally, write a summary or
create a documentary cataloguing these views and the
larger patterns that emerge.
Create a film that in some way answers the central
question—either from your perspective or the larger
culture’s perspective or both.
Write an essay about someone you know and admire that in
your view is doing meaningful work. (4 pages minimum—1st
person is acceptable)
thank you for listening!
Jill Donovan
John Burroughs School