Write Your Story…is the assignment I gave my students today. Followed up by a list of questions probing at who they are now as people, who they want to become, what their goals & dreams & fears & frustrations are. And on & on. A challenge I set forth to them as they begin our poetry unit, as they finish up an experience of 9 years together, as they embark on a new journey as whatever person they want to redefine themselves as in high school, in life. Quite the task for a group of 13 & 14 year olds. Quite the task for anyone, really. But I feel they are up for it. Even if I know the answers to those questions will change continuously and at moments will be challenging things to tackle.
I looked out into the faces of kids who put on certain facades daily and asked them to think deeply about themselves, in a way they hadn’t done before. I told them I believed that there was more to each of them than what they put out into the world each day, that who they were, what they felt and thought matters-because it does. It’s funny to watch as they question me on format and length requirements and then deal with my answer of, “Whatever works to tell your story.” These are kids who are used to the ‘GUIDELINES TO RECEIVE AN A+’ & here I am asking them to just let go & pour themselves onto the blank page. Apprehensively, some begin to write, while glancing around at others whose pens have begun gliding across the page as though they’ve been waiting for this moment. Some cannot seem to stop their chatter or their nervous giggles, for that would mean really looking within. While others move to a new place in the room and sink into their thinking. When given the free pass to ‘Put your heads down & think if you’re stuck’, some smile & look at me as though I’ve lost my mind. Funny what happens when a structured world is suddenly given some wiggle room, creative room, thought-filled room, simply put, just ‘room’. It’s as though these kids are so closed in by the world around them, by expectations, demands, constraints, activities, social worries & judgments, that they’ve never been given the room to really just sit with themselves and think about who that person they are sitting with really is. And writing it down, even stranger…no computer to correct their words to what they ‘should’ be, to provide a menu bar of distractions when the thinking gets tough, to tempt them to leave the moment and travel via the great ‘world wide web’ so far outside of themselves that they no longer need to face those deep-reaching questions.
But in time, they are all writing. And I can see them thinking. And soon enough, I am asked to read their stories. As I read them, they hover, watching for reactions, wondering what I think of them (& if I’ll give it an ‘A’). It’s probably frustrating that I make no judgments on their writing or their story other than to say, “Thanks. I like it.” I won’t answer their questions of, “Whose was better? Hers or mine?” I won’t answer the “Is it long enough?” question. I only reply, “Thanks. I like it.” They want more from me while I’m just letting them turn that into wanting more from themselves.
Expectations are a funny thing. I believe that no one will ever rise to low expectations. I think expecting things of ourselves and others is necessary and beneficial. I know there are people who view expectations in a negative way, worried about what others expect of them, worried about the implications of expectations. However, I think expectations push us to new places we may never have gotten to, that they challenge us in ways that we sometimes would forget to do ourselves, that they show you care. Yes, I expect a lot from myself and it would be nothing but insulting for me to expect any less from my students. I expect them to think about their lives as unique. I expect them to be able to decide the best way to tell their own story-it is, after all, theirs to tell. I expect them to find their voice. I expect them to believe that their story is great without a teacher saying it is. I expect them to find their way in this world & if I cannot guide them to believe in their own steps, their own voice, their own decisions, then I have failed them. They are worrying about failing my assignment, but I worry about failing them-which I would have had I not give them the opportunity to find themselves. To try without restraint to hear their voices within. To believe that whatever pours from the pen is worth writing. I believe they hold great things within them. I’m not sure if they all know it yet or believe that this assignment will reveal anything. And for some of them, it hasn’t yet revealed much, it’s still hovering on the surface of who they are. But I am hopeful. I believe in them. I expect it of them.
And the reason I do is because I know it’s there. The kid who stayed after class writing & thinking in silence while others packed their bags and gossiped around him showed me so. Those are the moments that tell me it’s worth it, even if it only lasts for mere minutes. Even if it’s not on state tests. Even if it’s not ‘measurable’. Those minutes matter. Those minutes will lead to something greater than a test score or grade on the report card. Sometimes, people let TRULY valuable moments pass them by because we are blinded by the things that have been deemed valuable by others. I will not let my students deem these minutes, the ones where they looked closely at who they are and what they care about, invaluable.
Write Your Story…is the assignment I gave my students today.
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