Being the Only Person Left on the Other Dodgeball Team

I am a believer in education. Since I graduated from college in Boston and had the "What am I going to do with my life?" moment that is the mark of the creative writing major, I've been lucky enough to find myself on a path of sorts. It's a nontraditional educator path--I'm not credentialed, and my training has been in the trenches of after school poetry programs, artist-in-residence teaching spots, museum education departments, and tutoring programs. I love working as a teacher in innovative environments. Even though the pay is terrible and the hours are ridiculous, I believe education is one of the only potentials for a level playing field we have in this country--socioeconomically, interpersonally, and so on. Though often cracked, I think there's a lot of goodness rising up from just beneath the surface of public education. I like to think of myself as a realistic idealist, which is how I ended up teaching college-level English to inner city ninth graders.

This morning, in the already-blazing hot classroom at an East Bay charter school where I teach what amounts to essay writing, I attempted to use the dry textbook we're working with as a way to teach the concept of writing a clear thesis statement. The exercise in the book directed us to take a statement of fact and convert it into a thesis--that is, take a fact and translate it into a sentence that includes judgement or opinion. One fact involved the Supreme Court's decision to not label all sexual imagery in art "pornography." I asked the students to give some examples of opinions one could have about the ruling. That is when the trouble began. Here, as I remember it, the unfolding of events:

Students: (stare blankly)
Me: So, what I need from you is an opinion--it doesn't have to be yours--that could guide this essay in a specific, clear direction. Could somebody tell me what part of the fact about the Supreme Court's ruling you would want to base an opinion on?
Students: (stare blankly)
Me: This is really important stuff, guys. A lot of you had trouble with this on your rough draft. You'll be graded on your ability to write a thesis when you turn in your final draft on Tuesday.
Student A: Um...so should it be about if the Supreme Court did or did not making a ruling about pornography?
Me: That's a good start, Student A. But that is the "fact" part of the statement. What part of the statement might you form an opinion about?
Students: (stare blankly)

Me: (lots of clarification. Eventually I draw out the idea from someone that the opinion would need to be about if you agreed or disagreed with their decision). So could somebody find a way to incorporate an opinion into this statement of fact and make it a thesis statement?

Student B: Do you want us to tell you if we think pornography is art?
Me: No (long and admittedly convoluted explanation about Robert Mapplethorpe, the NEA, and homosexual imagery in fine art photography).
Student C: That's sick.
Me: OK, that's your personal opinion, which I'm not interested in exploring right now. I want you to please lay out a thesis statement incorporating this fact and an opinion about the ruling.
Students: (stare blankly)
Me: Alright. Maybe this is too confusing of an issue. Let's move onto the next one.

I once read a book by an American Buddhist that offered the mantra, "Every moment a teacher." That concept is a tenant of Buddhist philosophy as I understand it. The idea is that you have choices when presented with difficult, exciting, chaotic, scary, boring, or fantastic situations: you can lose your head, or you can learn from them. Or, perhaps more likely--you can do both.

Teaching, like any aspect of life, is part of a grand spiritual journey. When I'm talking to fourteen-year-olds about topic sentences or (as happens when I'm teaching beginning creative writing on the other side of the Bay) what the term "voice" means, I am alerted (often painfully) to my impatience, frustration, inarticulateness, and judgement. When I ask a question and hear that cricket-loving emptiness in response, I am aware of my own racing brain and my insecurities. When a kid says something homophobic and I don't redirect them, I am aware of my own internalized prejudices. In front of a classroom, as in meditation or any other present-moment nakedness, the artifice is revealed. It is lonely, illuminating work.

Teaching is a deeply human endeavor. There is a sweet freedom in the unexpected, the being caught off guard. Being a teacher is a lot like being the only person left on the other dodgeball team. In the span of ninety seconds, you're fielding an irrelevant question, a behavioral issue, a confused statement. You're redirecting, with encouragement, a nonsensical answer, praising a good effort, saying hush, saying pay attention, saying what's going on in that corner, let's get back to the main idea again, where are we?

Groundlessness.

And then, of course, there is the spontaneous applause the class broke into today when Jose became the first student to nail a rewording of the thesis. And there are the students in creative writing who don't take their break so they can stay behind and read me their latest piece. There's the connection I feel with the kids when we laugh at something, or when somebody explains to somebody else--more articulately than I could--what it is I'm trying to say. There's the kick the kids get out of teaching me slang. There are the creative writing students exploring the topography of their evolving worlds: deaths, best friends who stop calling, first loves, sexuality, family disappointments, God, drugs. More than all that, there is the tiny triumph of Reggie quitting goofing around for twenty minutes and excitedly pointing out all the topic sentences in a "New York Times" essay.

Teaching shows me myself: creative, enthusiastic, impatient, thoughtful, smart, awkward, caring, defensive, evolving, imperfect, human me. When I pack up my stuff and walk out of either of the schools where I teach, I observe my brain make its lists of my mistakes, and then I counter it with a list of fruitful moments and good intentions. I know that every week, in front of the approximately ninety kids I teach, I say about fifty things I regret, and about a hundred things I don't. I am learning to let go, to trust in my goodness, to accept my imperfections.I talk about elements of style and restating a thesis and unified paragraphs all day, but what I learn from my ninth graders is to shake it off, to come back, to say it again in a different way. I am learning to be present beyond my expectations. I couldn't ask for a better lesson.