Yesterday I arrived at my new school to find the final set up for the chili cook-off--crock pots in the conference room, along with corn bread and a d.j. The mood was festive and smiley, and I felt happy to be there. I got my chili, 9 possible winners, small cups, but enough for multiple spoonfuls to taste, unlike some chili cook-offs. I chatted a bit with the other folks who got there early, the librarian I'd already met, the other three that I hadn't.
As the day progressed, I started to feel a bit sad, a bit left out, and a bit stupid for feeling that way. After all, I could have gone back and socialized. But what I really wanted was to already know everyone, so that the socializing would have been easy, not the effort that it feels like with new people. I also felt a bit sad, thinking about the times that I had helped organize such events for schools that are no longer with us.
Then off I went to teach class. It was the kind of day where we spent some time remembering all the due dates that are no longer far away. And in each class, I finished with two poems. Last week, I brought in poems that I thought might help us process awful news, two by Wislawa Szymborska ("Could Have" and "The End and the Beginning") and one by Adam Zagajewski ("Try to Praise the Mutilated World"). At one point, a student looked at me and said, "These are supposed to give us hope?" Hmm.
As last week went on and turned into this week, I thought about the poems I wished I had brought in. I realized it wasn't too late, so I brought them Maggie Smith's "Good Bones" and Naomi Shahib Nye's "Gate A-4." These poems worked much better, as poems themselves and as agents of hope. My students weren't any more chatty than usual. My Intro to Lit class seldom is, and my Composition class seemed tired yesterday. But in each class, there was a moment when I was talking/teaching/preaching on the possibility of hope and how a poem can do that when I looked out and realized that a substantial chunk of the class had tuned back in, back from their cell phones, back from zoning out, back from a head on the desk. I felt they had a keen sense of holding onto what I was saying, although I might have been projecting/wishing.
What we talked about yesterday--how to hold onto hope in difficult times--seems much more important than how to write a research paper, although I will teach that too. I want to record the moment yesterday, the moment when so many of them were paying attention in a slightly more focused way, because I often drive home wondering if I'm making any difference at all. It's that horrible sinking feeling when I think that they'll leave my classes not knowing how to write and not remembering a thing about what we read. But that's not true.
One of my favorite teaching moments was way back in 1996 or so. I was teaching an Intro to Lit class, and I realized that a young woman I didn't know was waiting outside the classroom door. I asked her if she needed to speak to me or if she needed me. She said, "I just like listening to you talk." I invited her to join us, but she declined.
I have often wondered what I was teaching that day. I'm glad that it spoke to her in some way. I often wonder what has happened to her, but the same is true for all of my students. I am grateful to have these moments of teaching, these moments when I feel like we're doing something vital together.
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