It Doesn't Seem Like That Much Has Changed in the Last 400 Years

This week at school has been the type that convinces me that teaching has to be one of the greatest professions a person could ever possibly have.

When I decided to get into this line of work, I did it because I wanted to be a coach and because I wanted to sit around and talk about literature all day. There has been less discussion of books than I imagined when I signed on - the fact is that most of my students don't understand a lot of what they read the first time through, which makes deeper discussion about meaning difficult - but I did find an unexpected joy as I really got down to do the work of teaching.

Most of the kids I teach are fairly low-level students. They don't understand a lot of what they read, they are generally unmotivated by either grades or the pursuit of knowledge, and a lot of them are just flat-out lazy. Thinking about teaching a group like this could be mildly depressing, but it's not all bad. No matter what we are doing, there always seems to be at least one kid who is interested. Usually there are a few in scattered pockets across the classroom. These pockets, though they may shift from day to day or week to week, are who I choose to focus on. It's inspiring and gratifying to see a student really connect with a piece of literature: they feel good about themselves for the positive encouragement they hear when I assure them that yes, that is pretty much exactly what the author was saying. Watching a student really understand a difficult concept (it sounds sort of funny, but you really can SEE someone understand something, I promise) brings hope for the future. I figure that if I can find and enlighten those students who open themselves up to be enlightened each day, everyone will gain at least some small shred of literary knowledge during their time in my room. Sometimes it's hard to feel like I'm leaving the majority of students behind, but I try to imagine the impact I'm having with the ones who are getting something rather than focusing on what the ones who are asleep or zoned out are missing.

This is how I mentally and emotionally deal with the frustrations I encounter every day, and make no mistake, it can be very frustrating. But then there are weeks like this one, when everything comes together and for a moment you see what is really possible in all of these students and in the universe. Instead of looking for hints of light in a room of darkness, you are overwhelmed with the brightness that comes at you from all directions.

On a day that started with my students complaining that poetry is stupid and insisting that they will never need to know any of this, they were dumbstruck by the beauty of Pablo Neruda's words. The boy who volunteered to read his "Sonnet 89" looked as though he were about to cry when he finished. The entire group not only understood the poet's words, but really felt them.

When we read John Donne's "Holy Sonnet 10", my classes engaged in an energetic debate about the nature of death with a degree of intellectualism that I didn't realize many of them were capable of. They brought up their own fears of the hereafter, and recognized the paradox of realizing that there is nothing to be afraid of and their inability to let fear go.

A creative writing project which asked students to write poems using conceits ended with some of the best poetry created by young people that I've seen. One student, a 6'5" bohemoth headed to Virginia Tech on a football scholarship, wrote a tragic and beautiful poem about his mother being struck blind that left half of my class in tears.

When we read the seduction poems of Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, and John Suckling, my students were eager to discuss each of these men and their writing. I don't think I saw a single students asleep or not paying attention all day. Like much great literature, the poems we read focus on men's attempts to get women to sleep with them; after reading the poems and discussing their arguments, one girl said, "it doesn't seem like that much has changed in the last 400 years!" I agreed with her and we all laughed about it.

I love that my students are connecting with literature in a way that is meaningful to them. I love that they are interested when they get in the room. I love that I feel like everyone in the room is really getting something out of what we are doing, and not just the few who feel good that day. I don't expect every week to be like this - teenagers really do have very emotionally taxing lives, and it's almost ridiculous to expect them to care about everything every day - but when so many great days are strung together in this way, it makes me know for sure that I am doing the right thing with my life.