"'To gather Paradise—'": Experiential Learning

           Eighteen of us—thirteen students from my Emily Dickinson course, a daughter, a mother, a boyfriend, my husband, and I—after ten weeks navigating 20 pages of school permission forms each (not knowing until the last week whether we would be approved), with the gracious last-minute reservations at Amherst venues—spent four days ideal for learning, bonding, creating memories that will last lifetimes.  We called it “The Emily Dickinson Tour.” The first part—the bureaucrazies and university reservations (literally, all the hold-backs of the insurance and legal departments, and administrators thwarting professors—just because), would be what Dickinson would call the “prose” of life in the introduction to a poem:

                                    I dwell in Possibility—

                                    A fairer House than Prose—

Yes, our tour experiences were a “fairer” House—both in the sense of more beautiful and more just—than the litigious, digitalized, quantified “educational” realm of Prose.

            I designed our tour for optimal Bliss.  I did not order a bus, or take attendance, or require the trip for grades; yet 13 of the 17 enrolled students came voluntarily, and enthusiastically, although, for some, this was a financial stretch. A boyfriend, a daughter, and a mom joined us, too. They car-pooled and in one case slept seven in a hotel room.  They arrived and left at different times—often opting to stay longer.

            When we were not gathering for our scheduled dates with our hosts, everyone explored on her or his own.  Sitting with them at breakfast in the HoJo lounge, I was grateful that Mali and Tori checked Yelp! for thrifting opportunities—so even before our first date—at the Amherst Historical Strong House—seven of us did Stations of the Thrift Store—including the purchase of white clothing for our Saturday night candlelight reading. Tori handed me a $3 hummingbird feeder, to celebrate one of the Dickinson poems we read, “A Route of Evanescence.” For their riff on Judy Chicago’s Dickinson plate, Destin bought an antique, rose-motif serving plate and Tori a silver one.  All the playing, finding each other treasures, dropping Dickinson lines.

At the Strong House, students cathected onto whatever caught their interest—Mali and her daughter Sam were fascinated by the 19^th century gowns and Millicent Todd Bingham’s suit with a Johnny-Jump-Up motif; Alison pointed out the display of stuffed birds under a glass bell; everyone loved Dickinson’s authentic white dress.  We discovered how tall she was when 4’11” Angie stood up on the platform to measure herself against it.  We were disappointed that we couldn’t see the bed with horsehair mattress and tightening ropes (as in “sleep tight”), but my students cared enough to ask about it.

There was a surprise exhibit of Lisa Yeisley’s drawings at The Jones Library, which served as appetizer for holographs of several Dickinson works; and Robert Frost’s hand-written draft of “Stopping by woods.”  Meanwhile, students were showing each other a miniature diorama of Dickinson’s bedroom, Dickinson’s earrings, grim photos of her father, portraits of Sue Dickinson, and other memorabilia.  I didn’t have to know what caught them—but caught they were. I was too busy oooing and ahing over my own discoveries.

It was raining, parking was impossible, no one had enough quarters for meters, and the walk was long, but after some finagling and one Uber ride, we all found ourselves—found ourselves—at the Special Collections of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College, where Mike had brought out treasures:  a lock of Emily’s hair.  “She was a ginger,” Anastasia remarked;  the original daguerreotype of Dickinson at age 17, and a new one on loan that might have been of her and a possible lover, Kate Scott Turner. (Later, we would see her portrayed in a film.) Both plates caught reflections, so we couldn’t photograph them as clearly as on-line images, but it was fun to catch our own faces mirrored in them. 

So many holographs! Kathy especially loved the one of a small open envelope on which Dickinson had written a “house” poem—the peak of the flap was whimsically reminiscent of the peak of a pitched roof.  And there was a practice rifle which Amherst college students used to practice for conscription in the Civil War.  I delivered a very in-group comment about “Loaded Gunn” to multiple chuckles. Too many treasures to enumerate here. At night, we saw a new film, Wild Nights with Emily Dickinson, which somehow, luckily (perhaps because I had inveigled manager George enough), enjoyed its opening night for us.

The next day we visited the Dickinson Homestead, the Evergreens (her brother and beloved sister-in-law’s house), West Cemetery, where, magically, the rain stopped when we opened our car doors to visit Dickinson graves (which we decorated with white flowers); and Wildwood Cemetery, where Janice, Alison, and I decided that we wanted benches instead of gravestones when our time came.  In the evening, we had a candlelight poetry reading at Emily’s grave—and, instead of the promised rain—we had the Big Dipper right above us, and white puffy clouds—as if Dickinson, herself, had thrown her white shawl protectively above us.

I don’t know which images will stay with my students, or what will inspire them in time, but being out in the field gave us all unique, irreplaceable experiences that made what we learned embodied, multi-dimensional, and lasting.  Between the cinderblock walls of overheated or freezing classrooms, curtailed by time, too-often having no opportunities to bond and socialize, learning can be sterile.  We had time and space “More numerous of Windows—/Superior for Doors.” Many times, I have heard students say that they can’t even remember their teacher’s names—that all they cared about what taking the test and then forgetting what they had crammed into their minds the night before.

On our tour, we ate together, we karaoke-d into the night at the HoJo, we talked about our lives and hopes. Some went to see End Game after Wild Nights.  Several normally shy students emerged into their confidence as they became fierce competitors at Taboo before supper. We explored and learned for the love of learning, not for abstract get-it-over-with courses. Emily Dickinson became real.  One of the many moments I treasure was when, spontaneously, we called out favorite lines of poetry at the end of our candlelight reading.  And I was surprised to hear who spoke which line—and that they remembered phrases so well.

We dwelled in Possibility. We had the experience Dickinson captures in her poem:

I dwell in Possibility—

A fairer House than Prose—

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

I like to think that she would say we were “Visitors—the fairest—”.  In writing this post, and on our tour, I and we, with her, “spread wide” our Hands, and gathered Paradise.

            Tour participants, as a keepsake for us all, please reply here with your favorite memories of our 2019 Emily Dickinson Tour, your take-aways, and your insights about how experiential learning yields surprising and lasting benefits.  Post your favorite images and videos.

Works Cited

Cover Art: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/emily_dickinson_379910

Dickinson, Emily. “I dwell in Possibility” in The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. R.W. Franklin.

            Boston: Harvard UP, 1998. #466.