Clouds and Daffodils

Friday, April 7, 2017

Clouds and Daffodils

I recently thought of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" when I was watching all the cloud formations as I drove through New Mexico and Arizona. Of course, the poem is really about daffodils and memory, the clouds being simply a simile to describe the speaker's wandering: "lonely as a cloud." But I was glad to be reminded of daffodils, too, especially as winter gives way to spring this April. The daffodils in the poem are "sprightly" and "jocund'" as they "flutter in the breeze."

As the speaker watches them, he has no idea how much joy they will bring him later, when he conjures them up in his memory and "dances with the daffodils." So powerful is memory that it can reproduce a vivid scene from our past as though it were with us in the present: we experience not only the visual vista but also the emotional experience.

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About Me

Cissy Lewis, an award-winning educator, has been involved in schools all of her life. As an eleven-year-old, she started her first school in Santiago, Chile, teaching reading and writing to children who had no school options. She comes from a line of educators – her mother earned a Ph.D. in political science in an era when few women were earning advanced degrees, and her grandfather taught Greek and Latin.

She started her teaching career at The Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas, where she taught English in both the Upper and Middle Schools. At The Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, she was honored with the Best New Teacher award. At the Castilleja School, she twice received the Distinguished Teacher Award.

Cissy Lewis held leadership positions at The Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and at The Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California. At Baylor, she joined the administrative team, initially as Dean of Girls and then as Assistant Head of School, to help the school implement the transition from an all-boys school to coeducation. At Castilleja, she was academic dean, Head of Upper School, Assistant Head of School, and interim Head of School. Her responsibilities included oversight of the daily academic operations of the school, and coordinating the recruitment and hiring of new faculty. She also oversaw curricular review, the faculty evaluation system, and faculty professional growth.

Ms. Lewis attended Mt. Holyoke College and subsequently received bachelor’s degrees in both biology and English cum laude from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She pursued graduate studies at The Bread Loaf School of English where she received her M.A. and was honored as Class Marshall. She also earned an M.Ed. at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, where she was influenced by Carol Gilligan’s groundbreaking research as reflected in her seminal work In a Different Voice, and focused on the psychology of adolescence and the education of girls.

Ms. Lewis has served on the Board of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California, and The Carey School in San Mateo, California. She enjoys reading, hiking, yoga, and travelling.