A daffodil by any other name?

Why finding the right metaphor matters.

The first day of spring – how better to celebrate the day than with daffodils?

Even better, this post introduces a new feature to our blog.  Since 2009, Dennis Huffman, program director of Prince George’s Community College at University Town Center, inspired by Teaching with Fire, has been sharing poems and reflections with faculty and staff each week.  We’re delighted that Dennis is willing to share these posts with us!  Here is the first one, with a short introduction to the project in his own words:

“I work at one of the off-campus centers of Prince George’s Community College.  It’s a small site with a big impact, serving more than 2,000 students each semester.  The place is a buzzing hive of activity night and day, and there is little time to pause for reflection or to interact with colleagues.  I wanted to give faculty and staff a different way to think about our work and our students.  I also hoped that providing a seed for conversation each week might contribute to a sense of community and common purpose.

So in 2009, I began sending out “this week’s poem.” It has become an important practice for me both personally and professionally.  In fact, a poet friend once told me that the poems and reflections I send out remind her of the scripture devotionals our parents used to read – verse and commentary to get them through the day.  That image initially gave me pause, but I’ve come to embrace it.

Now, my bookshelves are bowing with poetry collections.  I am always on the lookout for metaphors that might provide fresh insight into our role as educators, our place in the institutions and communities where we are trying to make a difference, and, of course, the people we serve.  Most importantly, this weekly practice gives me an opportunity to send out words of encouragement and gratitude that might otherwise go unsaid.”

A daffodil by any other name?

My wife started her career in the late 1970s as an English teacher in a so-called “colored” school outside of Cape Town, South Africa.  During the intervals between student strikes (this was not long after the Soweto uprising), one of her responsibilities was to teach “Daffodils” to her students.  Wordsworth was a great poet, but teaching an appreciation for springtime metaphors by way of northern European botany was a painfully pointless task in that time and place.

The story stuck with me, and I wrote my version of the poem (which follows the original) thinking, particularly, about the large number of community college students who were born outside the U.S.  I wondered what their “daffodils” – their connections to the natural world, their metaphors for renewal – might be.

But it’s not just our English language learners who struggle with unfamiliar imagery.  Reflecting on this has also made me wonder about how we develop and sequence our degree programs and general education requirements.  Are they carefully mapped out so that our students have the skills and context for the content that comes next, or are they full of “daffodils” that just don’t mesh with our students’ backgrounds, interests, and goals?

I think we have work to do on this.  The good news, however, is that the real daffodils have started to bloom.

Daffodils (1804)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

–William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1779 – 1850) was born in the Lake District of northern England.  Although both of his parents had died by the time he was thirteen, he was able to attend Cambridge University on a scholarship.  One of the best known Romantic poets, near the end of his life, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.

Daffodils (2008)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
’Tween part-time jobs and unpaid bills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
So, this is spring – at last I understand
What that can mean in this cold land.

“Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way”
We schoolboys chanted, grateful for the rhyme,
Ne’r dreaming of a time or place
Where flowers slept and did not grow,
Nor did we ever think of snow.

I’d heard the tales of emigrants; but they
Were lies, I’ve come to see:
Yet I lie, too – what can I say?
So many folks back home believe in me.
I gazed – and gazed – and then I thought
Is this the wealth that I had sought?

Now oft, when on my couch I lie
exhausted, in a homesick mood,
I travel with my inward eye
To see beyond this solitude;
My family dancing ’neath the bougainvilles
While I must learn to love the daffodils.

–Dennis Huffman

Dennis Huffman has been program director of Prince George’s Community College at University Town Center since 2000.  While he considers growing up on an Ohio apple farm to be the most important part of his training, he also holds a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language and a doctorate in community college education.  He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.