Threshold 9/27/11

What I teach is often what I learn. Modified: what I know I must learn I teach. Perhaps this is why I have pursued writing in such a way. Funny that I am beginning a class today, English 097, one step above developmental ed. This in some ways reflects my view of my own writing, developmental.  I have been teaching for many years, all ESL. It's been an interesting and engaging ride. Yet, it has yielded little for me in terms of my own development. Yes I have become more confident in the classroom, more cognizant of curriculum and outcomes, and more attentive to planning and assessment; and all of these skills have led to me being a better teacher. I feel very prepared to take on this writing class at Clark because it will draw from all of my abilities as teacher.  What ESL has not prepared me for, that is, what I have missed in the field, is a sense that who I am as a creative person has not been addressed.

I have found that over the years there are many ways to approach grammar, the construction of a paragraph or essay, the pronunciation of “p” versus “f”, and how to recognize a topic and an argument when you read it. I understand the various pitfalls that ESL students fall into and I try to help students avoid them by being aware, using the tools I teach them, be in control of the language instead of the other way around. I have learned to be discerning among the language groups I have taught, recognize the set of pronunciation challenges their language presents in English, notice the student who is skilled not at being a student but at avoiding the student’s responsibilities. I know how to teach language. But I need to learn how to teach people to use it. 

The biggest challenge I face right now with writing is my own fear of failure, or perhaps it is fear of success; don’t know how to distinguish between the two. I have ideas, I write them down. But when I begin developing those ideas, either I become too easily distracted or I find myself writing along less interesting lines. Sometimes, but far too rarely, I find myself in surprising territory, and that is when I start to feel the heat around a subject. It's the heat that I fear because I crave it so. It is the heat that warms me, but it only warms me if I work at it. In so many words, just what I tell my students.

The heat that generates around a character, for example, might actually derive from the very resistance I give it. If there is too much resistance, too much friction, I tend to be a wimp and back off. I need to be less of a wimp. I need to be stronger and more self reliant in order to take on the subjects that I know I need to write about. These are the doors I need to open, unlock, or kick down. Perhaps they are not doors at all but walls, mountains. I need to view these barriers as thresholds, exactly as I was telling my Reading students yesterday (had to teach “threshold” first). I said something like “it’s your job to cross the threshold but you won’t know you’ve crossed it until you’ve reached the other side and are suddenly looking back into the room where you once were.” I was talking to myself there.

I do that a lot, I think, talk to myself in my classes. I don’t think it is rare in teaching. We teach what we want to learn and perfect in our own lives. Or perhaps there is a point at which we shift from teaching what we want to learn to teaching what we have learned. Indeed I have learned that bit about crossing thresholds. Again and again I learn it. Today is a threshold day.