Ratul – B Jo Bennett. Author

Domrémy: The birthplace of Joan of Arc.

Ratul — Thu, 01 May 2025 11:52:14 +0000

This pin is of Domrémy, the birthplace of Jeanne d’Arc, also known as Joan of Arc in English.

Our family took a day trip to the birthplace and home of Joan of Arc: Domrémy in northeastern France. I remember being impressed by the basket full of baguettes on the bus for our picnic lunch there and of my returning home with a glow-in-the-dark Joan of Arc statue. I talked to the statue at night and put her under my pillow. I loved that statue and developed a love for this Maid d’Orléans from that play.

I was surprised when, years later, two of my students wanted to write a report on her. I had no idea that this maid from a childhood memory was a heroine revered by young women today. She is admired for her bravery and audacity in helping to establish the future King of France, and I took for granted that her visions were important, but didn’t realize that her feats were common knowledge among some young women these days.

While that statue was important to me as a child, I now realize that it was also important to France. While some doubted her, thankfully, two soldiers believed her when she discussed her “visions,” especially when she could describe a battle before it had occurred. They took her to Charles, the disinherited rightful king of France during the Hundred Years’ War with England. Charles was exiled in his own country.

She was dressed as a boy in armor and taken to the future king– she was a teenager, and he was a young man in his twenties. He also believed she was genuine when she shared visions about his inmost thoughts, which he only shared with God, or so I found in my research.

I had no idea that this pin on the Bavarian hat and this childhood memory was so important—both historically and personally.

Joan of Arc led the French soldiers to victory against the odds and eventually escorted Charles to be inaugurated as King Charles VII in 1429 at Reims. This is what her visions told her needed to be done.

I’ve also learned that a new movie will be made soon, adding to the several already made about this inspiring woman who had visions and, just as importantly, was believed. This is the part that intrigues me.

Sadly, after helping Charles become king, she was put through a sham trial and burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431. Charles exonerated her after her death, and she was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

I had no idea this iconic young woman, whom I remembered as a glow-in-the-dark statue, had a following.

I checked if there were any glow-in-the-dark statues online; I did not find any, but I did find other kinds of statues available, perhaps more fitting for me now.

Bluebonnets!

Ratul — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 12:00:44 +0000

Why do we love bluebonnets so much? Maybe it’s because they are so delicate and so many other images or symbols of Texas and Texas are so tough. The cactus. The rattlesnake. A boot. The heat.

I have named my cars Bluebonnet. I’ve made greeting cards with the bluebonnet. I have collected bluebonnet pins. Earrings. Did I mention bluebonnet coffee cups?

It’s hard to say why I love the bluebonnet so much!

My Class Picture

Ratul — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 11:38:39 +0000

My class picture from the time we lived there shows students who are from distinctly German backgrounds and others from distinctly French heritage. One young man looks like he might be Moroccan, but I’m not sure. If you can’t figure out where I am in the picture, I’ll take that as a compliment. Look for me with long blonde hair and blunt bangs, so different from the other children. I am a little taller than the other students. Perhaps I was a year older than my classmates? I don’t know. But, ironically, my teacher placed me right in the middle of the class. Find me now? The memories of being the only American in a French-speaking classroom left an indelible impression on me.

Map of Europe

Ratul — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 11:35:32 +0000

This is a map of Europe that can be used to show the locations we visited as children. We lived in France, in the Alsace-Lorraine area, which has moved between France and Germany throughout the history that these two countries have shared. It was an area that became the roadway during major wars.

The map will document where we drove in an old ’51 Ford and then in a ’57 Mercedes. We took road trips organized by our parents to museums, cathedrals, WWI & II cemeteries, battlefields, and castles. My mother always packed a food suitcase, and we often ate in old, empty houses that dotted the countryside if we found one. The buildings were strategically placed to store ammunition in WWII. I remember one along the Mediterranean where the wind blew so hard, we couldn’t even talk against it. These structures were not just for storage. I think they were also used for cover in battle.

Because I saw former battle fields and cemeteries from WWI and II as a child, remember cathedrals with scaffolding and in states of repair, and grew up in a family where Dag Hammarskjöld, the second secretary-general of the United Nations, was a household word, I become emotional about the War in Ukraine or when harsh words are spoken about NATO, as though the collective past can somehow be forgotten or erased. I feel the pain of a country at war in ways I cannot describe. Was it all of the cemeteries we saw? All of the sites of battles in the past? I don’t know, but I wish we could understand how a child’s education begins at a very young age. These hats can serve as a reference point for the pins, and by the end, I’ll note the sites discussed on the map.

These early memories have left a lasting impression.

Dear Muse

Ratul — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 06:03:07 +0000

“If this is an escape,
let the world we create
be a fantastical world,
a relief from shadowed life.”

The key you held,
unlocked a hidden door,
and what emerged
was not stale or putrid,
but fresh
in that light.

I have cleared a space.
I have cleared a space
where the whispering
of your voice,
the spark penetrating light
of your eyes
can cleanse.
Where your velvet touch,
your jasmined breath
can heal.
Let me soul take flight.

In my dreams,
I meet you
and from dreams
I grow.
No ordinary life for you
my muse.

Your hear, full
and open,
is my focal point.
Like an antenna,
holding the direction –
this dream –
holding the place solid.

Pivot of my life,
spellbinding embrace.
Your heart, open,
found me.

My dream,
not judged
but listened to
with a light continuance.
The idea poised –
materializing
at any moment,
inspired.

I call you, muse
and each time,
in no time,
a flood of fresh
sustaining milk.
A lightness,
but also
nothing,
nothing at all.
Sometimes,
I block the flood of light
while begging for more.

You receive
and give back
a cleansed purity –transforming the dross
with your voice.

This trembling love –
I reach out
and touch the moist air
or go within.
The warmth
pulls me to that point.

Sometimes I
feel you
in the air
like an echo
in my ear.
Your voice,
warm, smiling.
Walking beside me.
Walking inside.
vibrating.
Close.

The birds begin their song
outside my window.
A dark stillness
alive with
one bird,
many birds.
Steady, rich-throated.
Some higher, some lower.
An owl hoots,
receives an answer.
A symphony.
Delight.

My voice,
before under careful lock
without key,
soars.

Like a delicate crane,
you lifted out the crystals
lodged deep.
The beauty of what
once lay rough and buried,
honed against your shaping stone
surfaces polished,
smoothed.

Three views of a Bavarian hat

Ratul — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 11:19:13 +0000

I had three sisters, and we each had a Bavarian hat with pins that recorded our travels in Europe. This is the hat from one of my sisters, since her hat is better preserved than mine. Some of her pins are from her own time when she lived in Germany. These pins will be reviewed one by one as I recall or investigate the location. There are a few, I must admit, that I have to look up, as this travel is from the mid-1950s! That said, many of these pins bring out a memory or experience that is seared in my memory. Early childhood experiences can have a profound impact on a person.

The charms or pins will be selected in random order. That said, I did start with the pin from Rome. How many times did our father say, “All roads led to Rome?”

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Ratul — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 06:40:27 +0000

My mother’s world was her garden.
Hybrid eggplants, tomatoes—Better Girls and June Pinks.
Bermuda onions, Whopper sweet peppers, Monkey Begonias, Ginger and Day Lilies. A hand-carried Bolivian climbing vine, Here-Today-and-Gone-Tomorrow,
reaching far into the recesses of her thoughts.

In her old age
my mother plants trees in her mind
Sycamore, Mesquites, and Catalpas. She collects seeds to plant.
You could plant this seed, you know, she says, stooping down to pick up
the Huisache pod from beside the road, her hand pressed hard on her cane
to pull her weight back up.
In her childlike world
she plants this seed . . . fanciful words blow it. Rays of sunlight strengthen it.
Furrows of my tears bless it . . . here in my mind.
From her garden porch in spring,
a robin wings this seed to land.
From Song of the Suburbs, soon to be published.

Developing Character . . .

Ratul — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 06:30:38 +0000

The following is the abstract from a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, Number 20749 (December 2014). It is entitled, Fostering and Measuring Skills: Improving Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills to Promote Lifetime Success. The authors include Tim Kautz, James J. Heckman, Ron Diris, Bas ter Weel, and Lex Borghans.
Character is shaped by families, schools, and social environments. Skill development is a dynamic process in which the early years lay the foundation for successful investment in later years. High-quality early childhood and elementary school programs improve character skills in a lasting and cost-effective way. Many of them beneficially affect later-life outcomes without improving cognition.

There are fewer long-term evaluations of adolescent interventions, but workplace-based programs that teach character skills are promising. The common feature of successful interventions across all stages of the life cycle through adulthood is that they promote attachment and provide a secure base for exploration and learning for the child. Successful interventions emulate the mentoring environments offered by successful families.

There is so much to these statements. I’ve divided the abstract from the NBER article into chunks so that I can digest what is being said as a child, a parent, an educator of adolescents, and a citizen of the United States and the World.

For this blog posting, I will consider these statements as the child of two parents who grew up on working farms in families where education was an expected standard and norm.
Character is undoubtedly developed when a child respects the life cycle of plants and animals.

My first childhood memories are from my grandparents’ farm, which we visited every summer. More importantly, though, we lived in France as I entered school for the first time. My mother organized visits to art museums, cathedrals, chateaus, and castles, where we drank in the history of Europe and Western traditions. My father organized visits to cemeteries and battlefields of World Wars I and II. The balance between these two perspectives was my first character education class.

Today would be my mother’s birthday. I have chosen this day to inaugurate this blog post about the importance of imagination. As an educator of immigrants and reluctant adolescents, I have tried to use the base my parents instilled in me — as an educator in my classes. The last quote above is especially relevant:

“Successful interventions emulate the mentoring environments offered by successful families.”

This is the taste of heaven I try to create for my students, who sometimes struggle to embrace the challenges a new life or a new ecology presents.

The Bavarian Hat: The First Entry

Ratul — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 12:41:24 +0000

This hat is a symbol of my childhood. We traveled extensively during our stay in France when my father worked in the Alsace Lorraine area as a part of the European Marshall Plan after World War II. For now, I will just mention that memories represented by the various places on the hat go far beyond the pin or the place. Indeed, the pin may be the memory I have more than the actual visit so many years ago now. But each pin opens a door of experience that I plan to explore in this blog. I welcome you on this adventure!

Ingleside Seed Farm

Ratul — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 12:28:30 +0000

The picture above is a colorized photo my grandfather created in the darkroom on their farm, the Ingleside Seed Farm. The farm represents my grandfather’s blending of science and art. And my grandmother was with him every step of the way.

Ingleside represents a place residing in the heart. It is an interior landscape. A place we all crave. It is built on happy childhood memories. On the dreams of ancestors. From their ancient voices, we hear how to slow our lives down. We feel Ingleside in our quiet moments and thoughts. In our recollection of family. When we experience joy.

Education can also spark a journey to this place, making life meaningful. The McKinleys began a seed farm that flourished during the Dust Bowl and Depression by adapting seeds for the dry, dry climate. They grew everything under the sun in their outdoor laboratory. They built this seed farm on 120 acres with love, artistry, grit, and know-how.

My grandparents were both educators, and they educated a generation of children using the farm and everyday experiences. Their story and legacy will continue to grow in new and heartwarming directions.