Writing Advice

I tend to wax eloquent. I get carried away and often overstate things. When it comes to writing—I love to emphasis the wonder, the poetry, the magic of writing. I love all the goosebumpy things. But forsooth. I also live in the ordinary-run-of-the-mill-must-get-the-writing-done-soon world. I know that not everything I’ve written has come from the muses. Some articles have come out of sheer frustration. I’ve written many things with a kind of constipation-of-words approach. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. But I simply wrote until they came (in this case deadlines and bosses and people who make you write—bless their nazi-souls) are great aids.

The greatest writing advice I was ever given. “What is the secret of writing? The secret of writing is sitting on your ass and doing it.”

Marriage Proposal from a Monk

I live in Thailand. The following experience happened to me in Chiang Mai.

Last spring I received a marriage proposal. It happened all quite innocently.

The Thais were indulging in their weeklong water fight (Songkran) and by the end of the week--I had had enough. I was tired of getting wet so I sought refuge at a temple. I had just found a delightful place (a bench between two trees) to read when a Buddhist monk approached me. He stood over my bench adjusting his robe and talking to me in Thai.

After I let him know that I didn’t understand him, he switched to English. He was casual, but I was nervous as I reviewed the culturally-appropriate-ways-to-relate-to-a-monk. I thought of the rules: 1) Never touch a monk. Check, easy enough. 2) Don't point your feet at them. He sat cross-legged across from me on the park bench; I worried that sitting cross-legged across from him might somehow qualify as pointing-my-feet.

For a while we had a nice, but relatively boring conversation. We discussed the number of siblings we had. My job. His job. Tourism. Thailand. But then the conversation took a slight turn (almost unnoticeable at first but it grew stranger by the moment). First he asked me if I could teach him. I said it was possible if he was interested in attending my school. The conversation meandered along and then again he asked if he could be my student. Yes, yes, I reassured him that that was completely possible. But then he changed his tone. Could he follow me? Well, yes of course I told him. He was more than welcome to visit my school. Then he asked again. Could he follow me? Finally, I asked, “What do you mean when you say you want to follow me?”

He said, “get married.” He was very was very optimistic about our compatibility. He listed why I was a perfect candidate for marriage. He said, "you speak a little Thai” (I’m not sure how he reached that conclusion); "my parents like foreigners"; and "we're not too different in age" (he's 21--a 7 year gap). And the final kicker he said, "you could become a Buddhist."* Then he said (quite dramatically I might add), "when I'm done with these yellow robes then I'll come find you."

With such small barriers to marriage, why not?

*When I noted that I wasn’t ready to convert to Buddhism anytime soon. He offered to compromise. He could become a Christian.

Just Faces

When I was student teaching, life was interesting. I remember getting asked out on a date by one of my students in class. As in I asked, “Do you have any more questions about the material?” And the student replied, “Yes, would you go out with my Saturday night?” I remember an incident where I accidentally caught my food on fire in the teachers’ lounge (quite embarrassing for someone trying to ‘lay low’). But what I remember most was a conversation that I overheard between my mentor teacher and one of her colleagues. They were discussing how to divide the students up between them. He said, “It doesn’t matter. They are just faces to me.”

I was appalled. Ever since then I’ve been working against that his mantra. May I never reach the point where students are just faces.

I know that at some high schools we can teach one hundred students in a day. Or sometimes in college we can have one hundred in a classroom. But once all we see are faces than we have lost sight of our vision.

Each student walks into our classroom with a history, with a personality, and with unique needs and talents.

Names are important. That’s where we start. But showing up early to class so we can talk to our students, attending their games, going to their concerts, meeting their family that’s the next step. We start to take a history; we start to see them in the context of their lives. We do what one educator recommended: the proper study of teachers is their students.

Sometimes I’ve taken notes. There was a student who told me that she had never had a birthday party. I wrote that down. Someday I might get a chance to orchestrate a birthday party for her.

It’s when we start to know our students and invest in their lives that teaching becomes worthwhile. It’s our professional secret. Investment in other people reaps personal satisfaction.

I pity the teacher now who only saw faces. He’s missed out on what makes teaching truly worthwhile. Last year a student said, “Oh you must like teaching because you know you’ll make a difference in someone’s life.” My first thought after she said that was—“No, I like teaching because I like my students.”