Ignorance is bliss

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being yourself, control, Dante's Inferno, express feelings, fear, goals, high school English class, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, mentors, passion, teacher, trust, words, writing

Today I got an email from my English teacher asking if I could come in next Tuesday to help in the classroom. It’s midterms and the kids requested me be there during the essay portion of their test. What, you say, help out during the test? Yes. This is precisely what the trained educator in the room and I dreamed of, building enough trust with the kids so they might do something like this…seek out help.

My teacher is so clever as to recognize the value in teaching kids how to take a test by having me present. I sit on the sidelines and students step up one at a time in the middle of writing an essay, and as the spirit moves them, kibitz quietly for a moment or two. I don’t have any answers. Honestly, at the AP level I barely know what the literature is that we are talking about. But I do know how to think, and how to organize and how to help guide a logical progression of ideas. And that’s what we talk about. As a matter of fact, the idea that I do not necessarily read the works we are studying, allows an ignorance the teacher can never get back. She’s read it all, and read it all a lot. So, if kids are not clear enough in their writing to inform me, the average individual, of what their point is by way of specific examples that prove a point, they are not communicating effectively. So, in this way, the less I know about Dante’s Inferno, the better.

I do what I can, and apparently my ignorance is quite helpful.

Helping kids find their Intuition

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being yourself, control, Dante's Inferno, English class, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, Merchant of Venice, responding to art, Shakespeare, teacher, words, writing, Wuthering Heights

I absolutely adored my job today. I am talking about the one where I get to go to the high school and hang around the English classes and talk to kids about their writing. Today a steady stream of students visited me to discuss what to write their comparative papers on relative to Wuthering Heights and Dante’s Inferno, or how to prove some kind of point being made in Merchant of Venice. It all sounds pretty high brow, I know, believe me it is not, but truly the same dynamic occurs no matter whether we are talking about Shakespeare or the Sunday comics. It’s about art and responding to it, so there is not necessarily a correct answer. But half the kids are convinced that there is some special thing we must see them write in order to get the credit when truly it is about making an argument and supporting it with evidence to convince the reader of something.

So my job turns out to be sitting with kids helping them react honestly to the literature at hand since they cannot really pose an argument if they have not responded to the art in the first place. Whether they love it or hate it does not matter. Discovering that reaction and exploring why it is what it is, is so much more fun and so much easier than trying to figure out the right answer.