Meet My Friend: A Great Book

Being an English teacher is not easy. However, one part is particularly difficult, and it is not about grading papers. It is when students do not like a book that is one of your favorites. Actually, strike that. It is not a matter of like or dislike because much harder to accept is when students appear complacent about a favorite book and what the writer is trying to communicate.

For me, the book in question is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Here's something Mr. O'Brien says about one of the character's perspectives on storytelling: 

O'Brien is referring to Rat Kiley's proclivity for mixing healthy doses of imagination into his stories in order to conjure the deepest emotional resonance in his audience. The same idea is in play for me when discussing the book in class. After all, this novel thoroughly changed my perspective about so much. For example, it made me reconsider the following: how artists use form to communicate ideas; why stories are so important to tell and to hear; how stories themselves are created; what we mean by the word "truth"; and what it means to be human and to struggle with the burdens of love, death, joy, grief, and all of the "intangibles [with] their own mass, specific gravity, [and] tangible weight" (20).  In light of all this, it is not surprising that I feel frustrated when I perceive the kids are not getting it or are unmoved.  

Perhaps some students have come to expect books they read in class to have little relevance in their lives. Maybe reading books in class too often has followed a similar trajectory: read, take quizzes, write a paper, take a test. O'Brien himself suggests that literature is meant for more than this. In an interview with Big Think, he states that, "literature makes you feel. . .less alone in the world." This makes so much sense. After all, when a reader takes up a book, she must be willing to develop a relationship with the writer. Unlike any other art form, a book is only completed when a writer's words have been processed in another person's mind. 

I want my students to have this relationship with Tim O'Brien. Sometimes I see it grow. Often times, I do not. It is difficult to accept when the relationship does not materialize. It is like introducing students to a close friend who they have rejected without really getting to know. Of course, it is quite possible that the way I frame the book is not helping students to connect with it in deeper ways. This just makes it worse. Like I know they would love this friend if I could just find something they have in common. 

Unfortunately, the introduction only happens once, which is a lot of pressure.  Not to sound melodramatic or unnecessarily solemn, but introducing students to these voices is an important duty. Whether it is O'Brien, Miller, Hurston, Thoreau, or any number of others, the great challenge of my job is to lay the groundwork for a lasting relationship.  Realistically, I know this relationship will not take root between every student and every writer. We all have our discrete tastes. Still, I view every book launch in my classroom as an opportunity to create the conditions for a deep student-writer bond, while grappling with student's rejection of works and writers.

But when it is an old friend, it hurts a little deeper. Tim O'Brien says that "literature does touch people; it's not just to be read in English classes" (Big Think). However, the classroom can be that place where people learn to be readers. Mr. O'Brien, you're out there somewhere. Thank you for such an incredible work (and for all of your work). Know that I'm trying to do it justice. 

CIO: A Special Object

There was just something about the mahogany Alvarez acoustic six string: the deep brown color, the feel of the fretboard, the double “As” on the neck.  It was not the only guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music in my price range, but it was the only one for me. Since buying it three years ago, I have put a lot of miles on it, some smooth and some bumpy. However, during even the most frustrating moments, like learning barre chords, it has remained my most important possession. In fact, the frustrating moments make it important because those moments have taught me about grit. And of the importance of having a creative outlet.

What I Learn From Being a Student

This past week, I wrote a 14 page paper for Literary Theory, a graduate class I am taking. Besides considering questions about ideology and the formation of the self in essays by Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan, here's what else I learned.  Or remembered.

1. It's tough to write a paper when you feel like you only have a tenuous grasp of the material. Theory is difficult stuff.  The professor leading the class explained the material well.  I took good notes in class, asked, and even answered questions.  But I still spent the weekend chiseling my way through sentences like, "The jubilant assumption of his specular image by the kind of being. . .the little man is at the infans stage thus seems to me to manifest in an exemplary situation the symbolic matrix in which the I is precipitated in a primordial form, prior to being objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it in the universal, its function as subject" (Lacan, "The Mirror Stage"). Surely, none of the material I give my own students compares to this, right?  But it's not about the relative difficulty of the material. Instead, it's about recognizing in my own anxiety exactly how students must feel when faced with certain writing assignments. Overall, I was able to understand enough to cobble together answers to the questions. But it required reading and rereading. And then rereading again.  Which leads to the second thing:


2. It's time consuming to write a paper when you have a tenuous grasp on the material but are really invested and want to do well.  Knowing that I had other responsibilities to take care of, I gave myself blocks of time. For example, on Saturday morning I said I would work from 9-11, then do some other business.  I remember looking at the clock, thinking, "ok, it's 10:30. Let me finish working on this one point."  And then I remember looking up to see that it was noon. It's like this work creates a weird kind of missing time syndrome.

But that's not all, because working on the paper also reminded me of this:

3. Writing is grueling. It's a mental workout like no other. Sometime in the last year, I heard somebody describe writing as the most difficult thing you can do because it's like conducting an orchestra.  There is just so much to keep track off.  For starters, there's the ideas, the stylistic decisions, and the clarity. At the same time I am attending to Lacan's mirror stage and trying to delineate the ways in which it informs an Althusser's theory that all individuals are subjects of ideology, I also need to consider my use of language, grammar, and punctuation. Did I just write a bunch of long sentences? Then how about a short one. Right here. I looked forward to the opportunity to shovel my driveway because it offered an hour long respite from the mental calisthenics.

Which brings me to the final thing:

4.  As a teacher, I must do my best to remember these things I've learned or been reminded of because it is humbling.  I've read a lot about design thinking lately.  One of the most attractive aspects of the process is the focus on empathy. We all agree that students need situations that ask them to practice this skill. But so do teachers. Generally speaking, the people I work with are among the most empathetic I know. However, most of us know our content so well that, even if we don't know our field as thoroughly as we should, we can rely on our previous experience with the material to see us through. One way or another, it is easy to forget what it is like to be a novice in our field. If the empathic relationship is predicated on understanding deeply the concerns, desires, and struggles of another person, it behooves us to perceive our classes from a student's perspective, to try to "defamiliarize" ourselves with what we know and do. Achieving this leads to a more trusting, genuine relationship because it frees me from playing the expert. Instead, I can focus on the role I truly want to inhabit: a thinker who can teach what he has learned but also continue to grow.