Collateral Blessings of Going to Class

Every Monday, I have a night class from 6 to 9, the teaching of writing. The class is composed of half undergraduate and half graduate students, all either prospective or current teachers, so it makes for some very interesting discussions. I love the class. One of my fellow undergraduate friends, however, always has the same complaint: the undergraduate students are optimistic and passionate, aiming to change the world through teaching; the graduate students are negative and bitter, having lost their love of teaching. I suppose to some extent this is true. At least, I understand why he would say that. I hope he saw things differently tonight.

Recently, the graduate students have been giving presentations and leading class discussions for the first half of class. One of the graduate students tonight presented on self-efficacy and writing. She was asking a lot of good questions, like what are the connections between self-efficacy and writing, and whether or not being a good writer will affect a students' self-efficacy. This graduate student teaches at an alternative school in Charlotte, and she talked about how a lot of her students are very poor writers. Regardless of whether or not they really are poor writers, they certainly see themselves in this light. Many of these students have been told their whole lives that they're not good at school, that they're stupid, that they won't succeed in life. So many of the students at this alternative school have internalized what they've heard, and their self-efficacy is practically non-existent. They don't ever see themselves as being able to succeed in life--life outside of the streets--and especially don't see themselves as being able to succeed in the classroom.

As a part of her presentation, this graduate student read a letter one of her students had given her. This student has been in and out of trouble his whole life and currently is in juvie. 17, about to turn 18, and in the 9th grade. His letter would be considered as "bad writing" by school--lots spelling and grammatical errors. This graduate student, this student's teacher, however, didn't read that letter as "bad."

He wrote about his life, his struggles on the streets and in the classroom. He talked about how he's never been a good writer and he never will be. He had no potential in school and no future outside of trapping--drugs was his only future.

This student bared his soul in that letter. And school would call it "bad writing." In class, I started getting caught up in my own anger over how the education system works. I was fuming, barely listening I was so mad. I'm glad life didn't leave me in that place for long. I hardly had any time to be angry. This graduate student, reading her student's letter, started crying. That completely unplanned, choking kind of crying. For a while, she just stood there. Her lips trembled, her face grew red and wet, and she just stood there. When she finally started reading the letter again, it took her several tries to find her voice, and when she did, it came out in soft, short breaths.

Everything that we had talked about in class that day--grammar, writing, literacy, self-efficacy, --melted away, didn't even matter. The love this teacher had for her student overshadowed it all. And it re-focused me on why I'm in this education track in the first place.