The other day, Martin, one of my writing students asked me:
Have you ever had an epiphany?
I was so relieved he said epiphany. I mean, think of all the possible nouns a question like that from a teenager could possibly end with.
So, in my manliest of voices (but I had to think about it for a while -- is it manly to admit to epiphanies, and, if so, what would be the acceptable frequency of epiphanization that wouldn't compromise my veneer of impermeability?), I said:
Um. Sure. I have them all the time.
Then I looked around to see if any mouths hung agape or eyes widened in horror.
Safe.
I have so many things I want to say about comments I've received on my Boys and YA video (especially the things sent to me off the board, via email), but a comment to yesterday's post about blogging made me think about something sad.
Sadder than my horrible dream about the white hearse and who/what was inside it.
Back when I went to school, kids who wanted to become writers were encouraged to pursue that course. There was lots of support, and very rigorous expectations for kids who got into that word-filled track.
It was tough.
But, back in those days, I believe, kids who wanted to write became little monsters of mechanics.
I've spent some time popping in and out of various writers' boards and community websites, and I've noticed in the past ten years or so, there are an awful lot of people out there who have this intense desire to write, but admit they lack the fundamentals of grammar, spelling, and mechanics.
How could that happen?
It's kind of like wanting to be an Olympic swimmer, but you've never been in water before.
And we did it to all these poor people.
It happened at schools, where no child would be left behind, because we focused only on the minimal survival/performance levels of 4th- and 8th-graders. We did it by lumping every imaginable type of kid together in huge classrooms that taught them to sing the recited hymns of math-and-science-math-and-science and treating them all as one, homogenized, standardized child who wasn't being left behind.
And not getting left behind meant ignoring the child and pushing them along in huge, impersonal, standardized groups that could collectively achieve minimal marks on key tests given to 4th- and 8th-graders.
So we get this huge population of people who never were encouraged to cultivate their innately creative inclinations, and we've basically doomed them to permanent frustration and mediocrity.
I don't know what to tell you.
I do get emails from writers very frequently that voice that frustration -- I need to write, but I have a problem with grammar and spelling, and I never read great or inspirational books when I was a kid.
Seriously.
What can I tell you, other than you've been left behind?
The frustration is exacerbated, too, by the money-seeking organizers of "Writers' Conferences" and such, who'll take ANYONE's non-bouncing and misspelled check and tell them everything they need to know to break into the business.
Providing they haven't already been left behind.
If you really want to do it, I can give you some advice. But it's not going to be easy.
So, yeah... I sometimes have epiphanies.
I have nightmares more frequently, though.
15 comments:
Epiphany is one of those perfect words. Its sound emulates its meaning. Also on the list synapse and risible.
All right, lots to think about here. As a future educator in the field of English, I am weary of two challenges. My own relationship with the English language is one of many frustrations (who vs that, yeah I know) and the comma. But that's within my hands. Despite the last twenty years of sitting in classrooms where mastering a subject was a luxury and not a standard, I am making the English language my bitch. Slowly, but surely.
Taken the classrooms I sat in for years into consideration, I am scared silly when I realize I'll be teaching 16 and 17 year old kids about a subject they care nothing about. No matter how many different ways I'll end up telling them that writing matters and they'll be thankful to have writing skills when it comes to college, they will never buy into my biased opinion. But it's not truly a biased opinion, it's an informed opinion. I am in four college courses right now, and all of them require me to write distinctly detailed essays. Even my film class. I have received a couple of B's and a few A's on my essays so far this semester. And that's from a writing guy. I winder what my classmates who disdain writing are getting.
it goes beyond understanding how to organize your words for clarification, it's more important to learn the power of the word and what you can do with that power.
That is what I believe my challenge will be when I get in front of 25 teens and I have to tell them through their groans and shuffling feet them that writing is important.
*considering new career direction*
Don't get me started on No Child Left Behind. As a "literacy specialist" (whatever that is) I live the nightmare every single day.
And in the lovely state of California, we test students every single year, from 2nd through 12th.
I think we dropped the ball when we started believing that the tests were accurate, true pictures of student learning.
They are not.
They test what is easily testable. So, in order to have students perform better, we as educators focused our teaching on what was easily testable.
We kind of started leaving out the hard stuff.
So, um, yeah. Don't even get me started.
But someone once said that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. So in my school, I, too, run a writing club for kids. Enrollment is over 150. (No, I don't meet with them all on the same day!)
But there are kids out there who want to write. If authors do not mentor them, exactly who will?
Jonathon first:
You said, I am scared silly when I realize I'll be teaching 16 and 17 year old kids about a subject they care nothing about.
Don't believe they don't care about it. I'm going to talk to the kids in my writers' group -- they are all between the ages of 15 and 18, with the majority of them right at your target age.
If they are okay with it, maybe I'll make them the subject of my next video: what they write, what we do. They love it.
Which, I suppose, also addresses storyqueen's parting question.
I love doing what I do with these kids, even if the powers that be at their school seem to want to shut us down.
Fuck that. The kids know: they come first.
Jonathon, PLEASE do not consider a different career. The future needs you.
But... 25 kids??? What country are you in??? I think you need to start considering numbers greater than 40 if you're in the land of the free and the home of the socially promoted.
Oh... and storyqueen, I really wish there was such a thing as karma, but in my life the only things I've seen happen to good people are measurably equivalent to the things that happen to bad ones.
It's an honor to know someone who also runs a writing club for kids. We should get together some time and share stuff.
If you haven't seen Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter's book (I recommended it to Jonathon today) called SPILLING INK, I think it's a wonderful tool for young writers.
Yes... I am definitely going to ask the kids in my group if they'd be willing to be in a video about what we do.
Haha, I meant 25 students at a time, like, per classroom. I think the average HS teacher in my area has 100-125 students. But where I live is a tiny town and I know I will not be staying here, nor anywhere in my state since we are losing so many people.
Anyway, I was merely being melodramatic. I intend to stay on my current course: writing/Lit/Comm. I feel very passionate about Interpersonal Communications and that it needs to be implemented into HS culture. Speech class does not begin to even help our youth communicate among each other with respect. By the time they get to college, they'll be surrounded by people who don't care one hoot about who they are and what they bring to the table.
Whoa, digression.
Okay, your other point: kids care about writing and literature. Yeah, they do. So perhaps the issue as that many of them are too afraid to admit it? When I was in high school, I didn't do better than B's in my Lit classes. I didn't think I was smart enough to understand Whitman and Poe. I got Hemingway well enough because his words were stripped down.
And so now I am 25 and it's only been a year since I realized I like to write and read. In fact, I love it more than almost anything else in the world, besides the Beatles and peanut butter.
Each day I wonder what the hell I am supposed to do with that. Do I motivate myself with passion or do I motivate myself to find the passion within others?
I'm an ENFP, by the way. In case you couldn't tell.
Great post, Andrew. This is an issue near and dear to me. I used to be astounded when I met college graduates who were unable to write, but now I've habituated because it's so common (even in those with graduate degrees, sadly). It isn't just in the field of creative writing that it matters, either. I could go on and on about this, but I'll just say: well said.
And Jonathon, I second Andrew! Research shows that ONE positive relationship with an adult, like the one kids can share with an inspiring teacher, can make a world of difference for their outcomes. It's a matter of reaching them in a way they can feel and understand, which is easier said than done, of course. But how could they care about something that doesn't yet seem relevant until someone they admire shows them the way?
My fourteen yr old son can't write a full sentence to save his life. His spelling is horrible and his essay writing skills are nonexistant. He started grade 9 this year and we just got his first semester final marks. All of his marks dropped because his final projects were not up to par. All of his final projects involved written segments and he handed in work that I felt was more at a grade 5 level.
As a mother, I watched him going through grade school and was completely mind boggled when I asked one of his teachers why she wasn't going to fail him if he was doing so badly and she replied that they don't fail kids anymore because it is bad for their self-esteem. WTF? So being a poor student further along because the solid base wasn't laid is much better for their self-esteem??? So it isn't just the US that has messed up their kids; it has occured north of the border as well.
Jonathon, stay the course, you would be the kind of teacher I would love my sons to have. I only hope that he will click with that one magical teacher soon, before he decides school really isn't worth it anymore.
Ack. That last comment was actually from me, but my son had left his google account signed in *sighs*. I'll learn to look first before hitting the post button.
That's okay. Thanks to both of you, Mercy and Sean.
I'm a school skeptic.
From what I've seen (second hand) of some of the standard school writing courses I'd rather the kids were left alone. They suck the joy and imagination out and leave the "chunks."
We need to rethink the concept of school from top to bottom. Take a look some day at the list of famous high school drop-outs. The list starts with every blues and jazz musician ever, most of the rockers, a large percentage of the great actors and directors. Or look at the list of guys who blew off college. You can start with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Peter Jackson directed the LOTR movies and was a high school drop-out. Would he have been better off staying in school? Or would he be selling insurance in Auckland? Charlie Parker was a drop-out. Tarantino was a drop-out. Richard Pryor and George Carlin were both drop-outs. Just think what they might have learned about language if they'd learned just a bit more about dependent clauses.
The old model -- teacher possesses data, will transfer data to student -- is obsolete. Data is now free and ubiquitous. Wikipedia knows a hell of a lot more history than even a good high school history teacher.
The new model needs to focus on the art of thinking, on epistemology and logic, and especially on not killing the natural creativity that kids are born with. The fact that we are doubling down on standardized tests at this point is tragic.
Michael, I agree with the majority of what you say. There are always going to be anecdotal exceptions to the let's-go-to-school arguments, but populationally, using examples such as those you've listed, or Oprah Winfrey, Alex Rodriguez, of Bill Gates as far as the worthlessness-of-college argument goes just won't stand up.
And yes, you say, The old model -- teacher possesses data, will transfer data to student -- is obsolete. Data is now free and ubiquitous. Wikipedia knows a hell of a lot more history than even a good high school history teacher.
Okay, Wikipedia does know a lot of stuff, and Deep Blue beat Kasparov, too... but information won't automatically impart itself into the minds of young (or old) people.
Good God, not yet, I hope.
We need teachers. We always will need teachers. Real teachers don't "transfer" data. I'm sorry if yours did that to you. Real teachers help kids get their legs and move forward and discover things on their own.
Sure, there are always going to be kids who can learn just fine on their own via Wikipedia or NetFlicks or whatever.
But you can't honestly propose that's the "new model."
The reality of what is likely to happen in such an event is more horrifying than any dysto-sci-fi book you can throw at me.
Or upload at me.
Or whatever you do with that stuff.
I think the new model is a smaller number of very good teachers teaching a much larger number of students. I think late middle and high school kids will start and end their school days at times that are good for them, that they'll move their "classrooms" from home to coffee shop to park (and be tracked by GPS for their own security as they do so) assembling into groups when that suits them.
Since their work will be done online we'll have an infinitely more nuanced and detailed knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, what they are learning and what they aren't getting. We can track how well they read, how they move through the datasphere, how they interact with online communities.
The best teachers, with the best technological assists -- enhanced ebooks, web sites, social links -- will teach hundreds of kids via the web.
Right now a kid can go on Reddit -- they have a dedicated homework area -- pose a question on his math homework and get an answer from a grad student at MIT. The validity of the answer is checked by other Reddit users and voted up or down. They can get a history lesson from an actual historian, or a writing lesson from you.
I think we can have schools where kids listen to multimedia-enhanced lectures from the best lecturers, read enhanced texts, run their homework by an online community and work with other students all over the country and all over the world. They don't have to be normed, they don't have to move by age cohort, they don't have to choose a back-up elective because the one they want is full, they don't have to show up to school exhausted after a 7 AM wake-up.
I'm not talking about getting rid of teachers, I'm talking about paying the best teachers 300 grand a year to teach hundreds, even thousands of students.
The problem with trying to fix the current system without re-imagining it is that we have some hard limits, starting with teachers. Teaching used to attract the best because it was one area open to women and minorities and because the salaries were solid and the curriculum was fixed.
The more we push for smaller classrooms the more we dilute the available pool of teachers even further. I think we need better teachers than the current average, but also better than the good old days. And we are never going to materially improve the overall level of teaching unless we pay more money to fewer people.
Mr. Smith, I'm glad to say that your post didn't make me feel discouraged at all, just sad about the connections your mind makes to the words "dishwasher" and "learn."
I agree that the standards are too low in schools. Although I am proud of him; it breaks my heart that my third grade son and his best friend are the first and third best reader in their elementary school.
While I admire teachers (the ones who strive for excellence in their trusted position), I believe some of the responsiblity for educating children falls upon the shoulders of parents.
It seems like many parents I know are so involved with their own interests they don't take the time to supplement their children's education. They don't encourage their children to read for fun or sit down with them and try to build upon the subject matter addressed during class. Some of them don't even ask their children about their day.
I don't see how we can expect our venerable teachers to lead our children to new levels of intelligence when so many parents are apathetic about their children's education.
And while I think Michael has some interesting ideas for supplementing education- that might even work for very self-motivated children, I fear those numbers will never be achievable. People learn in many different ways, and while some may lean best online, many learn auditorily, or by hands-on experience, or plenty of other methods teachers implement to promote the best education possible. Jonathon probably could list a whole bunch of them for us.
Very understandable. Most people don't know that grammar is not just a politeness; it's the trunk, the basis, the very essence that your writing stands on.
Epiphany? I can recount a few - wanting to become a writer was one.
Nahno ∗ McLein ™
When my wife and I were entering our last year of college, one year from becoming secondary English teachers, we asked if there was a class to help us make sure we had a really good grasp on grammar before going out to teach it. We were told there was not. They gave us some ideas for pursuing the goal on our own (which we did), but our college had no form of grammar instruction for those who wanted or needed it.
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