Writing Marathon

This afternoon my friend Donna and I did a writing marathon, which was introduced to me in my Level 1 Iowa Writing Project class, and I just read about in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, which I highly recommend for folks who need to get their writing habit back off the ground.  She's a big proponent of writing practice--daily or near-daily writing that sort of cleans your insides out so you can begin writing coherence.  Thinking in this way has opened doors for me this summer to just write for understanding and memory-keeping.  It's been great.

The idea of a writing marathon is that you write with others, and after set amounts of time, you share what you've written without commenting.  Then you write some more.  In my class, we also moved between sessions to see if new locations would lend new inspiration.  Donna and I noticed that our pieces were a little cyclical.  Though my second piece didn't answer questions she presented in her first, there were definite connections.  This meant that we had a few themes in our writing:  teaching, mothers, death.  I highly recommend this activity for getting some words on the page and pushing your thinking.

I thought I'd share a line or two from each location.  These were all pretty stream-of-consciousness, not focused on craft, journal-like entries (I did revise a bit before posting), but I appreciated some of the thinking that came up.

Stop 1:  Cedar Falls Public Library.
"I so wholeheartedly believe in the institution of public school as the purveyor of upward mobility and the cornerstone of democracy that it saddens me to be worrying about the unintended curriculum that kills curiosity so much of the time."

Stop 2:  Hillside Cemetery, sitting on the bluff of the Cedar River.
Comparisons between teaching and farming: "Seeing the potential is necessary.  The seeds will grow into something stronger, and you have to maintain faith that it will happen in order to continue putting resources into it."

Stop 3:  The Hearst Center
Here I was playing around with verbs and titles of works.  I ended up working on a fiction sketch from the choices in my list:
"I saw the other monks whisper as I refused dinner again.  There is nothing to say, which is why I remain silent except for chanting in the evening as prayer.

There is no solace from thinking about the way they treated Brother Thomas.  None.  He was fourteen, taken in as an orphan.  He was confused.  His elders should have reached out to him in love."

Stop 4:  Cup of Joe
Here we ate treats and talked, so we did less writing, but we did finish with about ten minutes.  The exciting thing about this stop was that I got to start a new notebook.  I filled up one notebook between April and now, which is the most I've written in a while.  There are some good seeds there, and it gives me some motivation to finish this next one.
 "Equations are freeing as problems with minimal consequences if we can only value the wonder of a solution and the human brain.   Kids always look at me like I'm crazy when I impart how joyful learning is--how exciting that they get to come all day and learn for free!"

So there are some snippets from our afternoon of writing.  I think this could work with any creative outlet--drawing, painting, photography, and it's a great way to set aside time to do it.  Any other fun suggestions to keep creative juices flowing?

A Few Rough Ideas...

This is the draft of a piece I've been working through to articulate some of the ideas I've been thinking about regarding teachers unions and administration.

I try to instill the power of words in my students every single day.  Whether we’re reading and discussing a character’s motivations and what we can learn from them or working to articulate our own ideas, the gift of communication and what it can do for human beings is front and center in our classroom. 

            As a young teacher, I’ve been in this business for only five years, and in each of those years the politics prevalent in public education overwhelm, invigorate, and flabbergast me.  I can’t get too close to these politics, because they make me feel sick and they take away from my work in the classroom.  I’m also drawn to the politics because so much of it impacts my daily work with children.  At any rate, the more I learn, the less I understand about why teacher’s unions and the administrative side can’t better communicate.

            We are in bad budget times as I write this, which certainly heightens the tension.  Our district is looking to cover about $500,000 they are short to fully fund next year’s budget (they have about $4,000,000 in cash reserves, but that’s a topic to delve more deeply into at another time).  The good news is that there are few teacher reductions.  Unfortunately, cuts have been handed off to others: associates for general education classrooms and school nurses.  Our district is looking at outsourcing our school nurses to public health to save $60,000-$70,000 a year.  That’s the salary and benefits of one long-term teacher.  In the long run, this doesn’t seem worth it.

            What makes less sense is that if our union and our administration can’t agree on a settlement by Wednesday, the bargaining will go to arbitration.  I don’t really understand what that means, but I know that lawyers get involved, and according to our chief negotiator, it will cost the district $60,000-$80,000 a year.

            Um, what?? Common sense tells me that if the two sides don’t go to arbitration, we could save our nurses.  Our chief negotiator said that if the district will give us 4%, this won’t be necessary.  I said, “What if you go to 3%?” 

            He said, “I won’t.”  This, to me, also doesn’t make sense.

            Ever since I was a kid, I have been able to see the gray in nearly everything.  I can never make a decision because I can see too many sides and too many perspectives.  I feel that way now.  I see Sam’s point of view that if the union settles too low, we’ll lose the ability to attract quality teachers to our area.  If we drop all family insurance coverage for our teachers who are the single earners in their family, we’ll lose good people too.  There’s a union mentality that if you give a little one year, you’ll never get it back and you’ll always settle for less.  I also wonder what the district would be able to do, and what they would do, if we settled a little lower.  Would we save nurses?  Would we buy more computers for our kids?  Or would administrators earn big raises?  The trust is so broken between teachers unions and administrators that no one knows and no one will believe the other side is acting in the best interest of the students.

            Because I’m young and naïve and the teacher in me has always wanted to see the best in people, I believe both sides are acting in what they believe is in the best interest of the students.  I have to believe this, because I can’t physically work in an environment where I believe the leadership is greedy and manipulative. 

            Teachers unions are getting a lot of bad press these days, and some of it is deserved.  Some of it isn’t. I’d really like to write about the complexities of all this in a way that brings folks together and helps them understand the other side’s point of view. 

            Sam wants to step down as chief negotiator after this year, and I thought maybe I would be a good negotiator—I can see all the sides of problems.  That’s what ACTUAL negotiation is.  But I would be terrible in that role—I’d give in to a pay cut assuming my kids would have a consistent nurse in the building, my members would be pissed, the administration would spend the money on something else because you can’t actually bargain to save jobs, and kids would end up worse off because their teachers wouldn’t feel valued.  Epic fail as chief negotiator would be my legacy.  That’s the little scenario that plays out in my mind.

            So, how can I negotiate?  How can I contribute?  With the power of words that I teach every day.  I’m throwing this piece (it’s rough, I haven’t fully developed ideas or thoroughly revised) to the small world of people I care about on my blog because I want to make it a public goal that I write about this.  I have these ideas floating around for chapters in a book, how I can make it fit together, what research I need to do, and while I’m not sure what the timeframe will be or what roadblocks there might be, I need to articulate this goal and share these ideas while they’re so fresh and I’m so fired up. 

            I would appreciate any feedback or points of interest or questions you have that would fuel the fire.

Silly Goals...

I always have to laugh at myself when I say things like, "I plan to write a post five days a week," and then I don't even maintain that for the first week.

I know that I still need to put up pictures of the dining room.  I will, promise.

I'm coming up from the craziness that is parent-teacher conference week and feeling really good and really inspired by teaching and life in general.  (Oh yeah, my job is safe for next year.)

Last night over drinks I discussed some aspects of education with some wise teachers who have been at this for a while, and I have some interesting ideas for some new pieces to write, which will question the adversary between teachers and administration, how it got that way, and how it continues to impact kids negatively while neither side will budge.  I'm very curious about this and interested in exploring it.  I'll try to share along the way.

How Trying to Love a Pet Rabbit is Like Teaching a Struggling Writer

This is the second draft of a piece I started this summer. I've been working to revise it to submit it to NCTE's National Gallery of Writing. I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with it, but it includes good thoughts to think about at the beginning of a new school year.

Prey animals at heart, they are skittish. Bunnies have a natural instinct to run away, to escape the fox or hawk or human. As a group, they combat their weakness by reproducing rapidly, but as individuals, they are constantly afraid of what harm will befall them. Even in the safety of the basement, my rabbit, Clark, darts from cover to cover, quickly grabbing a treat between his teeth before hopping away to eat it in a safer location. I’ve been giving him daily food and water, along with auxiliary treats, for two years now, and he’s still afraid I might suddenly make him into a stew.

My classroom experiences with struggling writers have been the same way. I don’t think most teachers intend to prey on young writers, but experience with my bunny tells me that vulnerable beings may perceive a real danger even when it isn’t there. It may come sometimes from the wrong “helpful” comment on the wrong day, or several poor grades on essays they worked on intensely, but I think for my most reluctant students, it’s a feeling of failure that builds up over time. By the time my students come to me in eighth grade, writing has made them vulnerable so many times that they want to run or hide or not give a true attempt: if you don’t expose yourself, you remain safe.

There remains joy in watching a bunny, just as there is sometimes immediate joy in teaching. Clark will dig an imaginary den in a pet carrier with an intensity that reminds me not to give up. When he gains speed and has a sudden burst of energy, he jumps and twists simultaneously, in a gleeful motion that makes me laugh every time. I experience this genuine joy in the classroom, too, when a kid asks a gutsy question that restores my hope in the future, or a student’s kindness toward another child gives me a new ideal to work toward. Reading student work often reminds me how challenging adolescence can be or trains me not to drink or eat while reading, because I’ll sometimes choke on a giggle.

But there are times when my enthusiasm for these two areas of my life goes terribly wrong. What humans see as affection, bunnies see as threatening. When I try to pick up Clark, he is afraid I am going to kill and eat him. He kicks his feet and tries to scratch me—anything to get away and thump his little foot to show his anger and fear and reinstate a boundary I didn’t have permission to cross. When a young, vulnerable writer hands me a piece, I feel the same hesitation in the air. Just as touch sends a warning signal to bunnies, feedback on writing is something that has many times burned struggling writers in their pasts. They are told to be honest, to take a risk, to care. And every time I read too quickly, fail to listen, and respond too strongly with my own intentions, the desire to shut down grows. In my struggling writers, I see a reluctance to accept even praise, because they simply don’t believe it. They have been offered this carrot in the past, just before the list of suggestions and errors comes out.

Progress is made. After several nights of sitting on the basement stairs with Clark, telling him stories about my day (without trying to touch him), he’ll warm up. He’ll hop over and let me softly pet the spot he likes in the center of his nose. But I will read too much into it, and let my excitement carry me away, and the next night when I spontaneously reach for him (even when I know better), he sprint-hops away and thumps in a cupboard. I was uninvited. When I think about Mark, a writer I worked with this year, I made the same mistakes. We would make a little headway: Mark would ask me a question or share a piece of writing, looking for feedback. Working from what seemed like a good place, I would push too much or say too much, in a language that was comfortable to me. Mark would return to his seat, distancing himself from his piece and from me, rebuilding his shell.

There are lessons to learn here, from Clark. I know he’s ready for a little human-type affection when he comes bumbling over to me (especially if I don’t have a carrot in my hand). I remain patient, and I am sensitive to the differences in the ways we show we care. When he runs away, I recognize his prey-animal tendencies. I don’t take it personally or assume he’s not trying his best. I take it a day at a time, and I take responsibility for forging and repairing the damage to our relationship, some for which I am not responsible and some in which I must recognize my role. I can strive for the same understandings with kids like Mark: waiting for them to make the first move, showing caution in my words, not becoming too eager. It’s easy to forget that even when two species speak the same language, they don’t always understand each other. I must do better if I want my reluctant writers to see me as something other than another predator.