Thoughts on Teaching and English and Being Me

...another Advanced Comp paper that also could serve as a blog post...

From kindergarten through tenth grade, I was home schooled. I never set foot inside a public school classroom, never even saw the inside of a classroom expect what I saw in movies and television shows. I entered community college my junior year, eager to learn, with no idea about what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew is that I was good at working with kids, and that there were avenues opening for me in special education. And I loved to learn.

My first quarter at Whatcom Community College, I took beginning composition. My teacher was a feminist (the first real one I’d ever encountered) and a liberal who was not shy about sharing her disbelief in any sort of organized religion. My first essay was an in-class essay about the controversial Eminem song, “Lose Yourself.” I took the opportunity to write about a biblical view of family, which I was currently studying with my mom, and held my breath as I turned the essay in to her. She gave me an A. The next topic, yet another controversial issue, yet another deviant paper. And another A. I got bolder and began speaking up in class. I found others who had similar beliefs but had been reluctant to express them for lack of support. And my teacher and I became good friends. In fact, a year and a half later she wrote multiple glowing recommendations of this once-timid ex-homeschooler who found her voice in English 101.

I sometimes think about what might have happened if I had not been in that teacher’s class that quarter. Would I have chosen English as my future field? In one of my talks with her, we discussed why she chose teaching English. She was bright and could have gone into many fields. But she chose this one because of the flexibility it offered.

Two quarters later, after taking an English lit class that exposed me to literature I never knew existed and made me fall in love with poetry, I took the next course in the composition series. This time my teacher was an even more politically liberal environmentalist who loved Joyce James and Kate Chopin and Quincy Troupe. And, to my surprise, he loved my papers where I would contradict him or reinterpret things from a biblical viewpoint. Another solid A. And my desire to teach English grew stronger. Sam Roper, my teacher for English 102, told the class one day, “I chose to teach English because I can really teach about anything, I can say almost anything, and I get to hear you guys talk about it as well.”

This appealed to me, as I felt like I wanted to teach, but I also wanted freedom to improvise. I wanted to talk about important things, to explore things about the world that are truly worth exploring, to make people think. So I chose. I decided that I would be an English major. People were pressuring me to teach somehow, I knew I loved studying English, and I hoped it would provide me the opportunity to teach what I love and what I see as important.

But the further I get into this whole thing, the more complicated teaching seems to me. It’s not just talking about what you love and getting students involved in talking about it too, it’s the daily in-and-out of grading papers and coming up with lesson plans and figuring out what to do about students who just really don’t care. That’s the part that bothers me the most: how will I deal with students who aren’t interested in learning at all? I’ve always been a self-motivated learner, seeking out things which interest me, writing for the pure pleasure of organizing my thoughts on paper, reading for the pure pleasure of finding new things and meeting new friends. I don’t understand people who don’t care about learning. I really don’t understand people who don’t care about grades. As much as I try not to, I find that I am obsessive about my grades. I even go to the point of seeing my grades as a reflection of myself as a person, an attitude that I know is not healthy or right. But I still strive for the best grade I can get. The grade-less classroom appealed to me briefly, but I don’t think that I could operate like that. I don’t think I could handle not having a grade to strive toward. Because as eager as I am to learn, I get worn out. Midway through the semester, I find my grades dropping, and I force myself to go to class and to turn in assignments because otherwise I’ll fail the class and lose my scholarship and drop out of school and end up in a trailer park working two fast food jobs. Yes, some days I have to actually picture myself in a McDonalds uniform just to get myself to class.

But not all classes. Some classes I would love to just sit in on if there were no grade pressures. If I didn’t have to take general education classes in order to graduate, I’d do things like take Isaiah with Dr. Boyd just because it’s amazing book taught by a brilliant man and I would learn so much. I go to classes and learn about the Bible and about foreign languages and about other cultures and about music and about history and about literature and about theories, and I’d love it. But I wouldn’t turn things in to the teachers. I’d write to sort my thoughts out, to remember things I thought were beautiful, and to tell others what I’d been learning. But I wouldn’t have this sort of education. I wouldn’t sit through my fourth speech class ever just because my other three didn’t transfer. I wouldn’t try to listen to a boring teacher read almost verbatim from the book I read the night before about things I already have studied. I wouldn’t go to a math class and do unit multipliers and interest formulas and other things I did in middle school. Yes, middle school. Because I’ve always been liked at math, and I’ve always enjoyed balancing my education by having a mixture of things I’m studying at once. Math homework had been a welcome break from reading, and reading has been a relief from studying politics, which has been a diversion from solving equations. If I didn’t have to graduate but could still go to college, I would be better rounded than I am.

But I am abnormal in this way. So many other students don’t have this sort of enjoyment of diversity in learning. If there were no requirements, too many people would leave college having not learned anything. They would focus on one specific thing, they wouldn’t try to think through and synthesize their learning, and they would just waste their years as a student goofing off.

So as a teacher, I want to be able to give students flexibility in learning, to let them explore what they enjoy, but I also want them to actually learn. I’m not into making students do mindless busy work, but I also want them to learn. This is what I see as my biggest struggle when I start teaching. How do I give kids a love for learning through fun and interesting assignments, rather than make them hate it because of an overload of work that is entirely meaningless to them? How do I get them to be students who don’t turn things in merely because of the grade, but because they are actually interested in or even passionate about what they’re doing? I don’t know how, because I don’t even know how to get myself to do this. I want to get back to when I first fell in love with English, back to my junior year when I discovered writing to persuade people, or back to my freshman year when I began learning about the whole realm of great literature available, or even back to my grade school days when I passionately declared to my mother, “Oh, I just love diagramming sentences!” I want to be able to get people to one of those places. I want them to fall in love with books and authors and writing and the joy of connecting two ideas. I want to teach what I’m passionate about in order to make others passionate as well. But, mostly, I want to point people to be more like Jesus through all of this. That is why I’m here.

these nights i get high just from breathing...

How can life be so beautiful and so painful all at once?

The end of the semester is upon us once again, and I am tired just thinking of all I have to do in the next three weeks.

Today was amazing...a picnic in a beautiful abandoned cabin with some of my favorite people...wading in a stream, frolicking in a field, eating food from our childhoods, listening to "Drops of Jupiter" with all the windows rolled down...

Today was convicting...I read the book of Hebrews...amazing and scary...

I was going to write a long post about Skid Row, but I feel that my readership might be bored of the topic and miriam posted a wonderful entry about it anyways. Suffice it to say that I nearly bought a tent and moved down there. I just love and ache for these people so much that a few hours and a small taco doesn't cut it at all. I wish I was able to do more...but I can't.

For those of you who don't know yet, I will be interning in Oklahoma for two months this summer...working with inner city kids, which I think is one of my passions, but I need to find out for sure...and I am so excited for the opportunity. God is going to stretch me, for sure...and I can't wait!

Reading poetry is one of the small pleasures in my life...my Norton's Anthology of Poetry is like a treasure chest every time I open it. A very abnormal and eclectic treasure chest, yes, but still a treasure chest.

Have you ever read a book and found parts of your own soul staring back at you? It's scary. That happened to me the other day...I had to go for a drive to organize my thoughts...came to no conclusion but saw God's greatness more clearly, which is always wonderful.

I love people so much....but I don't love them enough. You know?

I use the words "amazing" and "wonderful" and "beautiful" far too often. I wish I had a larger vocabulary...or the English language had more words...or something. Oh for heaven...

Well, the hour is late and I should be writing something else so...
love love and a sweet soy latte to you all!

The Sibs Visit....

Some random photos from Caleb's and Audrey's time here

This is the "word bubble" for my blog. It shows the most common words used (on the front page at least). It is cool. You can find it at www.snapshirts.com.

nineteen

I used to say nineteen was a useless age. Now I know that it's not true.

Nineteen is hard and scary and fun and awe-ful in both senses of the word, but it's not useless.

Nineteen is last Friday night.
Nineteen is sharing beautiful dreams for the future over bowls of cheap Pad Thai.
Nineteen is cranking the music up and rolling the windows down and driving fast and singing loud.
Nineteen is praying about the future and getting acceptance letters and praying some more.
Nineteen is seeing the hurt in the eyes of the girl shooting up on the side of the road, asking you to pray that she can get more drugs.
Nineteen is being naive.
Nineteen is not knowing what to say or do but trying anyway, because you hurt for others.
Nineteen is crying for prostitutes who can't even accept love in the form of a taco.
Nineteen is sitting on a filthy street, praying and crying and singing and watching people go to hell and crying and praying some more.
Nineteen is believing that something can and must be done.
Nineteen is feeling overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and tackling it anyway.

My childish optimism is passing away--it's being replaced by a fierce, enthusiastic realism (still with loads of romanticism). I'm learning about the world and its prospects and hopes and its sin and despair. I'm learning about what I can do. And I'm learning about this God Who holds the future.

"Lord, break my plans"--Romanian hymn writer

Thoughts on a Rainy Night

Today is the perfect sort of day for lighting a candle, making some tea, and curling up in a big chair by a fire with a good book. Sadly, the only part of that I have right now is the tea. Candles and any sort of fire are rather frowned upon in a dorm room. And time for reading good books is scarce around here.

For some reason, my heart feels a pleasant sense of melancholy tonight. To paraphrase Anne Shirley, it's a delicate shade of blue. I think this is a good thing. I'm not sad to the point of depression, just quiet and contemplative. It's good to be quiet sometimes, good to have a quiet minute to just sit and think. I learn things about myself in quiet and solitude.

God has been stretching this soul lately. I am clinging to the knowledge that He knows perfectly how far to stretch it for my good and for His glory. (I cringed writing that phrase. It's so cliche--but also so true!) I am in awe of His delicate personal care for me. I am in awe that He stoops to care for this soul, to place it lovingly in the flames and watch until He can see His reflection. Isn't it incredible that we could be His reflection? What an amazing thing He has entrusted to us! Why do I so often take this whole precious gift of being a little Christ so flippantly?

Even in the middle of all this stretching and heating, there are moments of glad relief. I got an email from Natalie the other day about the Lummi club. The timing could not have been more perfect. It was one of those nights where the homework had nearly done me in, and my soul was much darker than a delicate shade of blue. I was ready to give up on many things when I got the email. I had told her that my summer plans were quite up in the air (which they still are), and she told the kids at the club to pray that I would make wise decision. Mikey, the troublesome one (read: a five year old boy who isn't keen on sitting through stories for an hour), told Natalie that I had to come back to Washington and be his teacher! She went on to tell me news of the club...how the kids had grown, changes that had happened in the family...and by the end I was in tears. It was just a little thing, but so often when I was teaching that club I would reach such a point of discouragement--to see those little sorts of results made my heart glad. I realized that I might not see now what God is doing in things I deem pointless, but He always is doing something. Even when I feel that nothing is happening.

We serve an amazing God! (And I can't wait til Heaven when I will have better adjectives and more time to describe Him!)

Sublime

Have you ever taken a drive on a lonely dark day?

Have you ever found yourself on a windy road beside the ocean?

Have you ever scrambled down a steep slope to a rock overlooking the shore?

Have you ever sat on the edge of a cliff with your feet dangling over the stormy water and read the gospel of Luke?

Have you ever been afraid that the power of the wind might blow you into the ocean?

Have you ever watched the waves relentlessly chip away at the rocks?

Have you ever wondered at the power of Him who made the ocean and the wind and insignificant little you...and then died to redeem you?

Have you ever found yourself singing praise songs with your voice swallowed by the storm?

Have you ever curled up by a fire at a coffee shop and given thanks for the many things He gives, like a warm latte and a leather journal and a good book and heat that reaches to your bones?

I have. It may have been the highlight of my spring break....

I Just Got a New Caedmon's Call cd...

I'll marry you if you can dance,
That's what I said,
Cause where I'm goin', they'll be dancing every day
And I'm gonna dance...

Thoughts from the Past Few Weeks

There is no particular order or coherence to the following list...

• Jesus is both gentle and fierce--gentle with prostitutes and sinners and fierce with Pharisees--and I think we often get the two mixed up. We're gentle with the white-washed sinners and fierce with the blatant sinners. But we need to follow in the ways of our Savior.
• I am completely inadequate in every way. Just when I start to think I might be actually helping people, I go to Skid Row and stand in the pouring rain, feeling utterly helpless. Helpless to give these people shelter from the cold and wet, helpless to fill their stomachs except for this small, cold taco in my hand, helpless to make them see that their situation will never be better until they surrender their lives to God. All I can do is tell them...about God's love and righteousness and plan for the redemption of the world...I can't change them at all. I am nothing without Him.
• Alarms mean nothing when you've only had one hour of sleep the night before.
• When I'm depressed for no reason, it helps to go and lay on a blanket and look at the stars and search my heart. Because you know what? I'm usually depressed because of unconfessed sin, because my only Joy I have pushed to the side, because I deem other, temporal things to be more important.
• Strong Bad is insanely funny...and even more so at 4 am.
• Talking to your friends from home is "good like medicine."
• Some Californians will not drive in the rain. If I was that way in Bellingham, I would have never gone anywhere.
• I've decided what I'm looking for in a man. Now God will proceed to show me how very wrong I am...
• It's nice to know people--to begin to understand your roommate on a deeper level than the surface and how to live together without strife, to make friends whom you can talk with about anything, and to see God bringing your lives together for "mutual edification."
• Valentines Day as a single girl doesn't hurt if you're looking to how you can serve others.
• My heart broke for the young teens in Uganda, so much so that I wrote a fragment of a poem:
  Dark eyes in a dark face
  Stare from the depths of a dark heart
  The hope of Uganda
  With hopeless eyes...
  I couldn't finish--there's too much in my heart and I can't find the right words. Actually, reading back over this, these aren't the right words. Oh, for the tongue of Heaven! I am glad the Holy Spirit intercedes for me with "groanings too deep for words."
• "God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own...We had better start encouraging one another with the theology of uncomfortable grace. You don't need the grace of relief right now, you need the grace of refinement." --from chapel with Paul Tripp
• "My purpose in the life of every person I come in contact with is to have them walk away from each conversation more like Jesus." --paraphrased from chapel with Tom Rios
• God opens up amazing opportunities for relationships with non-Christians where I've not expected them. Remember the kids I babysit? The 12 year old girl has really opened up to me lately and we're developing a relationship, and she'll actually open up to me about deep and important things. So I'm really praising God for that!

If you have some time and want to be convicted (ok, you might have time and not want to be convicted...), you should read some of Gunner's blog. He's the RD at Oak Manor, one of the guys dorms here. http://www.xanga.com/gunner23 (Sorry, I'm not good at html.)