Pomodoro, Jesus, and Rocky

 

How on earth could a timer that looks like a tomato, Jesus Christ, and the fictional southpaw boxer from Philadelphia named Rocky Balboa find their way into the same blog post?  A recent professional development session at my school had me pondering this very thing.

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a strategy for time management that has been around since the 1980s.  The basic idea is that you set a timer, which may or may not be in the shape of a pomodoro (Italian for "tomato"), work on your task for that amount of time, take a break, and then set the timer again for your next task.

This is a great strategy and one that the learning coach at our school, Jeff Buckner, presented to us during one of our faculty Teaching & Learning sessions.  Many of our students struggle with time management, and this is an easy strategy for them to implement.  Of course, this isn't just for students, and as I began thinking about how this could play out in my own life, my thoughts turned to Jesus and Rocky Balboa.

Our Favorite Characters

Ezra Pound recalled the following anecdote, apparently a favorite of William Butler Yeats.

"A plain sailor man took a notion to study Latin, and his teacher tried him with Virgil; after many leassons he asked him something about the hero.

"Said the sailor:  'What hero?'

"Said the teacher:  'What hero, why, Aeneas, the hero.'

"Said the sailor:  'Ach, a hero, him a hero?  Bigob, I t'ought he was a priest.'"  (Homer:  A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. George Steiner and Robert Fagles, 1962, pp. 17-18)

This anecdote well expresses the reaction many people have had to the characters of Achilles in the Iliad and Aeneas in the Aeneid.  If you prefer your heroes to be sword-wielding, spear-throwing warriors, the kind that yell out that their commander is a "bloated drunk with a dog's eyes and a rabbit's heart" and fight a river...yes, a river...then Achilles is your guy.  If, on the other hand, you want your hero to be the kind of person who suppresses his own feelings of pain as he inspires his troops and will do whatever it takes to fulfill his duty to gods, country, and family, then you want Aeneas.

For years, I was an Achilles kind of guy, and for that reason I did not enjoy all that much teaching Vergil's Aeneid.  At some point that changed, but I still gravitate to characters that leave it all out on the field, even if doing so does not lead to victory.  In addition to Achilles, I absolute love Diomedes in Book 5 of the Iliad.

Thus toiled the chiefs, in different parts engaged,
In every quarter fierce Tydides raged,
Amid the Greek, amid the Trojan train,
Rapt through the ranks, he thunders o'er the plain;
Now here, now there, he darts from place to place,
Pours on the rear, or lightens in their face.
Thus from high hills the torrents swift and strong
Deluge whole fields, and sweep the trees along;
Through ruined moles the rushing wave resounds,
O'erwhelms the bridge, and bursts the lofty bounds;
The yellow harvests of the ripened year,

And flatted vineyards, one sad waste appear,

While Jove descends in sluicy sheets of rain,
And all the labours of mankind are vain.
⁠So raged Tydides, boundless in his ire,
Drove armies back, and made all Troy retire.  (Iliad 5.110-125, Alexander Pope translation)

I love Rocky Balboa, giving it all, even when he loses to Apollo Creed in the first movie, and my favorite opponent of his is probably Clubber Lang, whose grit and determination, even though he loses, are simply brutal.  Yet I sometimes wonder.  Are these the models that should inspire me the most?

Front-running

Prefontaine and Bowerman

In the 1998 film Without Limits, University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland) is having a planning session with long-distance phenom Steve Prefontaine (Billy Crudup), who does not agree with his coach's philosophy of running.  After stating flatly that running any other way than all out and leading for the entire race is little more than the excrement of chickens, Pre explains.

Pre:  What else do you call laying back for two and a half miles then stealing a race in the last two hundred yards?

Bowerman:  Winning!

There is a great part of me that thinks as Steve Prefontaine did.  I am a highly driven person, and like Achilles or Diomedes or Rocky or Pre, I want to hit hard and give it my all.  And then there's Jesus.

Pomodoro Paul?

Jesus took time away from the demands of ministry to pray.  He got up early and separated Himself from the hustle and bustle of life to spend time with His Father.  He was never in a hurry and even stopped to address the needs of an unknown woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years while on His way to heal the son of the synagogue leader.  He famously taught His friend Martha not to be stressed out over things of lesser importance and to focus on what truly mattered.  And despite His seemingly slow and deliberate pace, He accomplished all He was sent to do.

What, then, is my takeaway from the Teaching and Learning session at our school?  I know myself well enough to acknowledge that I am wired for action.  I will probably still declare those lines about Diomedes translated by Pope when I am in my golden years and with as much thrill and excitement as I read them today.  Yet I want to reach that time and fulfill all that God has called me to do, and therefore it's not so much the action-adventure heroes that are my models for how to live, however much I may enjoy reading and watching their exploits, but Paul.  Paul was a hard-driven sort of person, shown first in his zeal for his faith searching out Christians to have them punished.  Yet once his life was transformed by his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he approached life a bit differently.  Still passionate, although for a different mission, he would say go on to say, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:14, ESV)

Passion and drive are good, but they must be balanced with rest and restoration.  Fulfilling the call of God is more important than the thrill of any high adventure moment along the way.  I imagine that if tomato-shaped timers had existed in his day, Paul might have found value in the Pomodoro Technique.

Teacher of A Thousand Faces

 

Bernard Barcio on the catapult field

Legendary actor Lon Chaney may have been known as the Man of a Thousand Faces for his ability to transform himself with makeup in the early days of cinema, but the teacher who deserves that appellation should surely be Bernard Barcio.  His former students who knew him as Magister Barcio are legion, yet nearly equalling that number are the colleagues who called him Bernie and whose professional and personal lives were better for knowing him.  Then there were the audiences who knew him as Fabius the Tribune from the Roman army or Marcus Loreius Tiburtinus, citizen of Pompeii.  Those who tuned in to the NBC Nightly News in the 1960s and '70s knew him as the man who helped high school students build and launch catapults, and many there were who knew him as family.  Bernie passed away recently, and it is only fitting that as someone who benefitted greatly from knowing him, I should say a word or two.

Antiquity Never Gets Old

My first encounter with Bernie was when I was in high school.  He presented his persona of Marcus Loreius Tiburtinus, citizen of Pompeii, at the Indiana Junior Classical League state Latin convention at Indiana University.  Over time I would invite him more than once to present either that persona or his persona of Fabius the Tribune to my own high school classes, and he was the first person I called when I entered the world of historic reenactment in 2011.  As I began building my own personas to present to student audiences, I asked him questions about developing an accent and building the backstory for my characters.  One piece of advice he gave me that I have been careful to follow in all my presentations was not to kill my characters too quickly.  As he put it, you have spent 45 minutes to an hour drawing your audience into the ancient world through your character.  Do not immediately drop the accent, put your glasses back on, and start taking questions.  At the very least, step backstage for a few minutes and then take the stage for questions, thus establishing a distance between yourself and the persona you have worked hard to create.  I was more than inclined to take Bernie's advice since it was not the first time I had called on him.

A Roman Soldier Gets Me a Job

After having taught for several years at middle school, high school, and undergraduate levels in Missouri and Texas, my wife and I felt called to return home to Indiana.  I called Bernie and asked him to keep an eye and ear out for any Latin positions in the Indianapolis area.  The internet was up and running in 1998, but it was not yet the resource we all use today, and I thought the best way to find out about Latin positions would be to reach out to someone who was well connected.  Bernie had taught Latin at Park School and North Central High School in Indianapolis; Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana; and as an adjunct professor at Butler University.  His engaging ways of introducing students to the wonders of the ancient world led to his nationally known, annual catapult contests, events that caught the attention of NBC throughout the 1960s and 1970s.  Not long after I called Bernie, I received a call from the World Languages department chair at North Central High School to interview for the Latin position there, a position I would hold for the next twenty-three years.

Teachers of the Year

In the mid-2000s my friend Gary Abud, Jr., and I hosted a podcast called Teachers of the Year Radio, and we asked Bernie to be a guest.  It was an episode on Project Based Learning, and Bernie talked about the catapult projects of his students, which in his day had no special title like PBL, but were simply evidence of good teaching.  Bernie fit the bill as a guest on our show for multiple reasons.  He was an innovative educator, to be sure, but he was also an education leader.  His non-profit Pompeiiana, Inc., served students and teachers alike for decades in the promotion of classical studies.  And he was also an Indiana Teacher of the Year.

Bernie was the 1986 INTOY, and when I was given that honor in 2014, I was proud to have him sitting at my table for the award ceremony.  I was humbled again when I saw that a picture from that evening had made its way into one of his books...yes, he was an author of multiple books on everything from the early life of Jesus to America's national parks...and was included in his tribute video at the funeral home.

No Longer Wary

My current classroom is home to more than 1,200 books, and no small part of that is the result of Bernie's generosity.  Whenever a Latin teacher gave him his or her books upon retirement, he would share them with the rest of us who were still in the field.  It was also Bernie's practice to send to all of his Latin teacher friends an email on March 15th, the infamous Ides of March on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., a cautionary message reminding us to beware of the day...Cavete Idūs, in Latin.

Bernie need no longer be wary of that day in March or of any other, for he is now at home with his Lord, for more importantly than being a master educator, he was a follower of Jesus Christ.  His obituary says this.  

"Bernie was endowed with a deep and abiding faith in God, and was a devout member of Christ the King Parish, where he attended services daily, and never failed to show up in service to his fellow parishioners and to the Lord. Bernie was especially sustained by his faith after the untimely death of his beloved wife Lillian in 2004. Following Lillian’s passing, Bernie renamed his home “Casa di Coraggio,” Italian for House of Courage. His courage was fed unmistakably by his Christian faith, and by the fellowship, community, and inspiration he received from his biological family, Christian family, and daily prayers. Bernie uplifted the spirits of those who met him. Even when he was down or suffering, he sacrificed in service to others. He regularly tithed to the Church not only a share of his earthly treasure, but also his time and talent, hand-crafting and donating hundreds of wooden crucifixes to folks living in homeless shelters, donating scores of bushels of vegetables from his garden to those in need, and offering innumerable hours of his allotment of time reading to elderly residents of American Village Retirement Home. He was a teacher not only in his profession, but in his daily interactions."

When I saw him at the funeral home, holding his rosary and with a crucifix above him, I whispered the famous words of Catullus to his fallen brother, Ave atque vale...hail, and farewell.  But those were words on this side of eternity.  On the far side of the veil separating this life from the next, I am sure he was hearing different words.  "Well done, good and faithful servant."