Parallels of Tenacious Youth

I have a deep, dark secret that very few people know.  This secret has grown stronger this week since the secret came to an end.  I will share my secret with you now, but please know it is difficult to do so.  Are you ready?

I love the show "Glee".

Whew, there is freedom in saying that declaration out loud!  It's funny.  I have always loved this show because it blended my love of musical theatre with hysterical satire.  Jane Lynch, as Coach Sue Sylvester, is a masterful comedian and always delivered her droll lines perfectly.  The first season was the best.

There is another character to which I was drawn while watching this show;  Rachel Berry.  If you are not in the know, Rachel was the head geek of the Glee club.  She was a fantastically driven, yet extremely talented member of the Glee club and later in the series emerged to be the head of the Glee club and a Broadway star.  But, why did I like her so much?  I always wondered until this week.  Then, it came to me.....I was Rachel Berry in high school.

Now, before my high school friends say I wasn't, I will reflect on ways I was completely Berry-esque.  

I was not the singing giant Rachel Berry is in the show.  My Berry qualities revolved around journalism.  I was the Editor-in-Chief of our high school newspaper, the CHS Voice.  I loved to write satirical columns as well as hard-hitting articles focusing on social injustice.  For instance, while other students were skipping school to get high, I skipped school one time to interview New York State Governor, Mario Cuomo.  Did I have an appointment with him?  No.  Did I even have any credentials to do such a thing?  No.  But, like Rachel Berry, I was tenacious as hell at 17 years old.  I was going to get that interview.

Governor Cuomo was in town to propose to put a nuclear waste dump in my home county.  As you can imagine, there were protests.  So, I made my own credentials (a press card I made in the art classroom after school one day and laminated it myself).  I masqueraded as one of the protesters, showed my "credentials" to the officials and got into the press conference.  I got a few quotes and asked a question.  I was a full-fledged journalist (in my own mind).

In college, the tenacity to get an interview followed me and I was happy to get access to a number of famous people who came to my college and surrounding colleges to do concerts or speaking engagements.  I dated a fellow "journalist" for a while because I really liked the way he wrote.  He said our relationship was like the movie Reds.  Even my dating life revolved around my quest to be a journalist.  So funny, now that I think back about it....

My Rachel Berry sensibilities followed me on my term abroad in college.  I was not content enough to just take classes while I was in London, but felt that I had to stretch my journalistic skills.  I muscled the director of our program into getting me an internship with the university's public relations department.  This internship served to be a huge disappointment as all the director wanted me to do was get him coffee and fawn over his accomplishments.  I was bored and deflated until I got the offer of a lifetime one night at a dance production.

My friends and I went to a Twyla Tharp dance recital one night.  I happened to be sitting in front of a nice couple from New York (I could tell by their accents).  I struck up a conversation with them as I was from New York as well.  It was a great conversation because I was a little homesick at the time, but when the gentleman offered that he worked for Bloomberg Business communications, my Rachel Berry tenacity went into overdrive.  I immediately started listing my credentials and gave him my contact information.  While his wife was focusing on inviting me to their house for a nice meal, the husband realized I was serious and told me he would be in touch.  I could not focus on the dance!  All I could think about was working as a professional journalist in London!!!

He did call a couple days later and invited me to an interview.  I really thought, "this is it!  I have arrived!!".  I did well in the interview and was offered an apprenticeship.  I would have to fly back home to get my visa organized before taking the position, but I was hired.  I rushed home to call my parents.  On the ride home, I felt like Tom Cruise in the movie Jerry Maguire when he was singing "Free Fallin" in his car.  I was beyond excited.

My excitement dwindled when I called my parents.  My parents are the most supportive people on earth and as they were trying to figure out what I was breathlessly saying about visa status, they asked me if I would finish college.  I hadn't even thought of that.  Really?  Not finish college?  The thought had not occurred to me.  If I took this job, I would have been leaving college in my junior year.  And, talking with my family made me miss them like a pain.  After our conversation, I made the decision to go home and finish my degree. This decision was a pivotal moment in my life at the time.

For years, I would second guess and regret my decision to come home.  I thought of the Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" and I thought I chose the wrong road.  After moving to Charlotte and meeting my husband, I began to realize I made the right decision.  However, professionally there was something wanting.  My inner Rachel Berry was screaming to be noticed.  I didn't realize until after I quit my job in university admissions that teaching would be the realization of my dreams; to share my passion for writing.

There's nothing like the feeling of knowing where you belong.  I never quite felt that feeling in high school, college or in my early 20s.  I was always regretting and reaching for something beyond my scope.  But, teaching writing and conveying my deep love for writing to students was all I ever needed to quell my inner doubts and feelings of regret.  Teaching is where I needed to be all along.

Do I still push myself?  Absolutely!  In fact, this blog is the manifestation of pushing myself to write.  This blog is for me; dedicated to my former journalist self. my inner Rachel Berry.

The Art of Being Human

I read a wonderful article in the Chronicle of Higher Education the other day entitled, "To Help Students Succeed Professionally and Personally, Teach the Art of Being Human" by Lisa Dolling.  In her article, Dolling pointed out that you cannot separate the personal vs. professional in higher education.  She remarked, "Either you believe the purpose of going to college is to be able to secure a (preferably high paying job), or you think there is something more intrinsically valuable to be gained from the years spent earning a degree...developing the intellectual capacities needed to succeed as professionals and  human beings" (Dolling).

Teaching the art of being human...

So, I began to think about how I teach students to be more human.  What do I do to model humanity in my classroom?  So, began the quest to be more intentional about teaching this supposed lost art.

I thought about how I write with my students.  We do writing prompts in class and I ask them to reflect on a subject. We write together and I share my product with them.  Sometimes, I am on it.  I did what I intended to do in my writing and I am proud of it.  Other times, I laugh at myself because when I read something I have written out loud to them, sometimes it just doesn't make any sense.  So, I laugh at myself...with them.  I thought this was showing them I was human, but there is more to achieve than just laughing at my foibles.

Human.  Teaching the art of being human.  Hmm....compassion, maybe?

In my class, I ask students to dedicate 2 hours per semester on a service learning project.  This project is where they go out into our community and volunteer their time at a local food bank, animal shelter, homeless shelter...whatever they choose.  Then, they write about their experience as part of our final project for the course.  My intention is to teach students that they are not only part of our writing community in class, but part of a greater community out there in the world.  I want them to know how fortunate they are to be pursuing a higher education.  Through service, I am able to reflect on how grateful I am for my family and how I lucky I am to be teaching.  Service learning is a reminder of how human we are.

Compassion, humility...what else is there?  I think that teaching the art of being human starts in your class when you are given the opportunity to share your feelings and opinions through writing.  I encourage students to draw from their experiences to learn from one another.  Some of my veterans choose to process their thoughts about what they observed in war.  These observations are the most haunting, yet revealing cathartic exercises.  I am honored to have them share these reflections with me.  Other students reflect on difficult decisions they have made in the past; whether it is to move to another area or leave a marriage in which they are being physically or emotionally abused.  It is humbling that students trust me, or their fellow students in our classroom, enough to share these all too human situations.

Writing allows us the opportunity to explore the art of being human because it invites the author to draw from personal experiences and reflect on their choices.  Writing in a college course is more than just regurgitating facts or structures of writing.  It is the invitation to the human experience.  Write about it.  Express how you feel.  Tell us your thoughts...

As a result of Lisa Dolling's fine article, I am going to be more aware of how I teach students, not only how to be good writers, but how to be human.  I will need to do some self-reflection on this topic as I am still a work in progress as well.

Here is a link to her article. I hope you enjoy it!  http://chronicle.com/article/To-Help-Students-Succeed/228281

Transferable Experiences

I was at a writing conference this past weekend and the keynote speaker spoke to us about knowledge transfer.  Knowledge transfer is basically when students utilize skills from a previous learning experience to help them perform a present task in our classrooms.  It was a very interesting discussion that led my mind to drift wondering about transfer...

Transfer in our own lives...

What experiences transfer from childhood into our adult lives?  How do they transfer?  After this speaker's address, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about my kids.  What days/experiences would transfer as they get older? What will they remember?

My mind thought in horror...oh!  Will they remember those snow days when we all were getting on each other's nerves.  You know...those "Mom of the Year" moments where I was yelling at them to just "calm down".  And Colleen proclaiming, "Mommy is a mean mommy".  Oooh!  I shudder just thinking of it.

Or, will they remember our dance parties in the kitchen; twirling around to the sounds of music while laughing our heads off?  Perhaps they will recall story time before bed where Mommy and Daddy do all of the silly voices while laying with our precious ones snuggled in their beds.

The mind reels.

So, I brought this topic up at a dinner with our friends.  We were talking about going to Disney World and I asked one of them what he remembered about Disney World as a kid?  He said, "Space Mountain, It's a Small World...that's pretty much it.".  Huh!  That's what I remembered too, except with a little "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" and "Snow White" thrown in for good measure.  But, it got me thinking.  How long had our parents planned, scrimped, ruminated, and saved to make this magical vacation for their children---only to have us remember 3 things?  Why doesn't every magical moment transfer?

The memories that transfer most from my childhood are happy, everyday events.  I remember those in detail.  For example, I used to hang out on the front porch of our house and pretend to be sauteing up some greenery from our front lawn.  I was preparing dinner for my husband, Han Solo, while fighting off bad guys from our kitchen.  I remember the pungent scent of the lilac bushes in our side lawn and using the leaves as currency to buy my groceries.  I also converted a stinky, moldy shed into a home for my dolls and Han.  I spray painted it silver and didn't worry that while I was fixing up the shed, the boys from our neighborhood borrowed my spray paint to spray slugs.  Ah, youth!

I know that as my parents read this blog, they will be thinking....what about this vacation or that special treat/event we shared?  I would be asking those questions as well, if I were them.  But, what I have realized is that it is the everyday, run of the mill days that transfer into my memory.  The good stuff is in the small stuff.

So, for my children, I really hope that the memories they transfer into adulthood and reminisce about in their older years will reflect the warm and happy feelings in the song "These are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs and not the dreary, filled-with-regret tune "Holding Back the Years" by Simply Red.