As you probably know, I have spent the last three weeks at a writing workshop through my school district. I have had to write one reflexive piece, which I have previously shared with you, and one extensive piece. (I cannot yet share the extensive piece because, as part of the assignment, I must seek publishing.) Our final paper is anything we want it to be. Tomorrow, on our last day of “school,” we’re having a read-around where everyone shares something they haven’t previously shared with the group. Because of the weightiness of our previous pieces, it doesn’t have to be polished or fancy. What you see below is what I will be sharing with my class. I wanted to share it with you so that you can get a last little glimpse into what my last three weeks have been like.
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I didn’t want to come here.
“If we hire you for this position, you will have to complete a three-week teacher development course in writing. It’s part of being in the English department here. You can take it in June or July. It’s a serious class; you will go all day every day and you will have homework every night. This is a required class. Will this be a problem?”
Continuing my bright-eyed smile, I assured the academic dean and the principal of my undying enthusiasm. “In fact,” I bubbled, “I absolutely love learning new techniques for the classroom!”
Interview over. Did I just lie?
My enthusiasm for this class (whatever there ever was of it) waned as the school year progressed. Watching my students in February still struggle with blending and digraphs, I worried that the summer writing institute might not apply to my classroom. Rejoicing with my kids as they painstakingly wrote words like “my sister” above a very, very colorful stick figure in May, I wrote off the idea of teaching anything remotely resembling writing and began dreading the useless workshop. But, it was a required class after all and “I absolutely love learning new techniques for the classroom!”
I knew what I was in for: building things. Crayons, scissors, and big paper. “Now you try it!” a bubbly elementary school teacher would direct. We, as professional educators, would groan as we had to work together on yet another KWL chart for the class. What do I know? Everything you’re about to say, because I went to college. What do I want to know? Why do school districts require that you repeat college courses and call it “continuing education”? The last question’s supposed to stay blank until later, but I could fill it out now. What have I learned? Capital N-O-T-H-I-N-G—EXCLAMATION POINT!
Can we say bad attitude? Well, it was with good reason. I just described every teacher development course I took in Miami. Either they were assuming none of the teachers paid any attention in their college classes, or they didn’t want to actually do research and prepare new courses that would truly continue our education instead of merely repeating it.
So what did I see when I first walked in to this training? I saw the spirit-breaking evidence that we would, in fact, be building things. Scissors, glue, sentence strips, colored paper, highlighters, sticky notes, and markers threatened to suck my soul out of my body that very moment. Seeing the enthusiastic instructions to make myself a name tent and noticing the two very bubbly teachers, I knew I’d be in for a loooooooong three weeks. I’m just not a “let’s work in groups to build things and then share them with the class in a sing-song voice” type of person. I went to school to teach secondary students, thankyouverymuch, and I may even have aspirations of post-secondary instruction. That does NOT include sentence strips or glue sticks! (Never mind the fact that God recently played a prank on me and put me in a very elementaryish classroom disguised by a middle school’s marquee. My classroom does, in fact, include sentence strips AND glue sticks. But my personality usually does not!)
Well, to speed things up in light of this fact that this is very obviously NOT the agreed-upon haiku, I’ll get to the point.* I was blown away by this workshop. Yes, we had to build things. And honestly, it kind of sucked sometimes because I can’t draw at all. Yes, our teachers were bubbly and enthusiastic even when I was ready to die of complete physical, academic, and spiritual exhaustion. (It was sickening, actually, that they could work so hard and still be so bushy-tailed.) But, overall, the past three weeks have been absolutely revolutionary for me.
While it is true that many of the strategies I learned in this workshop cannot be used in my unique classroom without severe modifications—if at all—that didn’t translate into the worthlessness I expected. In fact, I can’t think of a more useful way to have spent the last three weeks of my life than in this classroom with these phenomenal instructors and surrounded by peers of such high caliber. In the past three weeks I have been intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually challenged to write what matters—to really find my voice and to make my words matter.
I think the words I wrote in my reflexive and extensive pieces are the most important words I’ve ever written in my life. They are me—laid bare, uninhibited and vulnerable. I’ve either never had the courage to do that before or I’ve just never taken sufficient time to allow God to really show me the words.
And show me the words He did. Thank you Becky, Theresa, Carolyn, Cari, Vivian, Ashley, Jennifer, Kathleen, Tony, Matt, Cecelia, Anne-Marie, Vanessa, Anna, Rita, and Cathlena for helping me listen to Him. I’ll never forget these last three weeks. So, can we all be Facebook friends now, ‘cause I wanna stay in touch!
*The instructors let slip that the length of our last day will be determined by the length of our read-around pieces. So, we all agreed that we’d write haikus and be out by 10!
