Writing Teacher
Lone Oak Middle School
I got the short straw. On that straw, I think I found just one of the many definitions of this profession we call teaching. In college, there were two professors who taught earth and space science, and each had a reputation that preceded him. There was one that "you just want." He was the one that was personable and kind and lavished good grades upon his students. And then, there was the one I found on my schedule when I got that aforementioned straw. He was the "impossible" professor on campus...the one who taught above heads and lived for his content...the one who, according to the rumor mill, prided himself on ruining GPAs of previously successful students and clouding dreams of even the most ambitious of pupils. After the pity party that was sure to commence in the head of anyone who "got" this guy, I took a deep breath, I mustered every ounce of energy I had to get through my least favorite subject of science, and I - the self proclaimed goody two shoes with a past of stellar grades and fabulous report cards - tried my best. And...I struggled. A lot. Like didn't want to get out of bed to go to class kind of struggled. Like showed up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower for a couple points of extra credit in the professor's backyard type of struggled.....excuse the grammar, but ain't nobody want to do that!
At the end of the semester, the doc required a lengthy paper from each student detailing accounts of practically every exhausting topic we had covered throughout our months together. I completed that paper like a champ (or maybe like a shamed puppy with her ears hanging low who knew she had done wrong), said a prayer, and submitted it to the towering professor in hopes of simply not having to see him again the following semester. A few days passed, and then Dr. Earth and Space Science called my dorm room.....what teacher does that?!? Visions of my dad's hard-earned tuition money slipping through my fingers, into the campus fountain, and quickly down the drain began to fill my head as he told me that he would like to see me in his office about my paper. I panicked. My heart fell as I envisioned my first school failure becoming a reality.
In his office, Dr. Earth and Space Science said something for which his reputation had not prepared me. "Lea Ann, I finished your paper. Through my reading, it became evident to me that......you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what we have been talking about this semester." I could almost feel my self-confidence being ripped from my body, but then he continued. "However.....if I hadn't known better....I would have BELIEVED. EVERY. WORD. You have quite a gift for writing, Miss Atherton, and it sure sounds like you know what you are talking about. Don't get me wrong....you CLEARLY don't, but you almost sold even me. My wife is a writer, and I have grown to appreciate your craft. I am giving this paper an A." Tears came to my eyes as he said, "But, Miss Atherton, you have to promise me one thing. Promise me that in your future, you will do something with this writing thing. Between you and me, you might want to leave earth and space science alone, but writing....now that's where you may really have something."
Dr. Earth and Space Science defined one of the responses to "Teaching Is..." that I carry with me into the classroom everyday. Maybe he never did make a scientist out of me, but he taught me enough to allow me squeak by with a B for the semester that made me prouder than many of the As I had received in the past. More than that, he assessed me not for my ability to climb that symbolic tree that Einstein has made us think so much about, but for my ability that he knew would eventually make my future what it is today. He found "my" genius....and he encouraged the continuation and development of that. He let me be ME, and he even celebrated who that "me" was in the end.
In my own classroom, some of my students want to be authors or journalists. Some of them don't...and that is okay. Teaching is digging into the personalities that show up at the door and finding ways to connect the classroom content to the genius in each of them. Sometimes it's as simple as making writing more about hunting and fishing and less about rules and stipulations. Sometimes it is providing an outlet for their most opinionated middle school voices to be heard. Sometimes it is making history come to life in the classroom for those war buffs before the narratives are written. Sometimes it's simply showing up at a game to support the part of them of which they are the most dedicated and proud. Teaching is finding individual talent and showing the student that through it, "they may really have something." And...on those days when all else fails, it's having them describe in a paragraph what they think a meteor shower might look like....and then having them describe the real thing in a detailed paragraph...for bonus points, of course.
*This post previously appeared on Ms. Atherton's personal blog "Paisley, Pencils and Poptarts"
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