Any student that really knows me, knows that my favorite day in class is often the day where things don't actually go the way I planned. Now, please don't misunderstand, I always want things to be organized. However, the real learning seems to happen when we deviate from my carefully constructed process, and move into the more fluid areas of intellectual discourse. Well, there is no greater deviation from 'the plan' for a teacher than to lose your voice... Picture this…AP Literature class and we are finishing up our study of Pygmalion. My plan for the class is to mediate two very interesting Socratic seminars, but since I have no voice I am unsure how this activity will work. In desperation I beg the ASL teacher to let me borrow one of her third year students to be my voice interpreter, thinking that if I sign to her and she speaks for me, perhaps the class time will not be a total waste… But then, something amazing happened. The students took control. Later that day, a well-respected young man from the class (let’s call him “Jake”) actually says it was his favorite class--not because I couldn't talk, but because everyone was so engaged and the discussion was so lively. But, I have to wonder, if it was so good perhaps specifically because I couldn't talk. Perhaps they rely on me to furnish the right answer or direct the discussion onto one path or another. Instead, for nearly a solid hour, fifteen high school seniors discussed ideas that many adults would shy away from. They hypothesized and they rebutted. They challenged and they acquiesced. In short, they owned that intellectual space and they didn't need me at all. And that is the best teaching moment...the moment that you are the caboose instead of the locomotive...the moment they carry you instead of the other way around.
Is this only a teaching thing, or more specifically an AP thing? Of course not. This is a parenting thing and a leadership thing… a boss thing and a coach thing. Any time you are instrumental in the creation and formation of some aspect or ability of a person, and you watch them go from apprentice to journeyman to master, you experience this glorious superfluity. And now for the segue...yes, of course this relates to writing as well. When are you more in the driver's seat in terms of forming someone than when you are literally imagining them out of the ether? And yet, if done right, if done thoroughly and with abandon, this creation and formation can result in the character stepping outside the bounds of what you expected and becoming something more than what you made. Done right, characters will move from being puppets that you tell what to do and not do, to being so real that they will tell you what they are willing to do and not do, who they will love or not love, even what they will dream and not dream. You don't believe me? You think this is impossible magic? Perhaps.
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Wendy Picard GorhamWendy lives and works in the midst of words everyday--English teacher by profession, and writer by passion! Archives
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