Call me...humbled...

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my “teaching ethos” (mostly because the leader of my teaching mentor group has asked me to do so); and after reflecting on my first year teaching composition during my MA program, I’ve decided to publically apologize to my former students.

During the years between my programs, I worked as an assistant director at a learning center. Here, I worked with students (and their parents) from different backgrounds with different ability levels. Although these students had various learning (dis)abilities, they had one thing in common: they needed someone to tell them they could be good in school, not another person telling them exactly what they sucked at.  [I also learned that many kids cannot comprehend what they are reading and nobody has cared (or noticed) that they couldn’t comprehend—but that is a different post.]

I think the biggest mistake I made as a pretend professor was forgetting that as freshman they were not college students or college writers yet. I had wrongly assumed that they could handle criticism without feeling hurt and that they should be able to do college level work and think at a college level (they were in college after all). I was angry and saddened by their lack of ability, and I interpreted this as apathy.  However, what I discovered later was that none of my students had really ever been asked to think or express their opinions. I was also frustrated by my personal lack of support…I had no idea how to “fix” my class and I did not have the resources (nor did the university) to help me figure out a solution.  After my experience, I was ready to give up teaching—basically because I thought I sucked.

After working at the learning center, and being able to help students, I realize I did not suck, but I did have the wrong perspective. I had these visions of what it mean to be a “Professor”—I thought I had to be tough, be intellectual, be…I don’t even know what I thought it meant. But really, being a professor is being a teacher and remembering that these are just kids trying desperately to be college students but who do not know what that means yet. I asked myself: what do I need from a professor? I am, after all, still a student—a reminder that I needed to humble myself.

A recent quote sums up my newfound teaching goal: “The writing teacher must not be a judge, but a physician. His [her] job is not to punish, but to heal.” –Donald Murray.

Although there are those students who are apathetic and don’t want to try, rarely do students try to write terribly on purpose... or because they hate me.

*** I feel like the time between my posts gets longer and longer, and I am determined to shorten those gaps! Therefore, I’ve decided to post on Tuesdays. All of the reasons why we started this blog are still things I think are important, especially now that I am re-school-a-fied (basically, I’m back in school), and I want to keep our conversation about literacy and books and all things bookish going.

Looking out for the Ladies -- Jacqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly is a timeless ode to girls, especially those with an interest in science.  Needless to say, I loved it.  As the daughter of a science teacher (and the sibling of an honest-to-God rocket scientist), I have spent my life surrounded by the joys of discovery.  While I can’t say that I know all the elements listed on the periodic table or understand all of what Stephen Hawking writes, I get the appeal of the scientific method – to discover something completely new and life-changing would be the greatest moment of one’s career. 

Kelly frames each chapter with a brief excerpt from Darwin’s The Origin of Species to connect the action of the story – a look into the year of a twelve-year old girl named Calpurnia (or Callie) Tate at the turn of the 20^th Century.  Faced with a decision whether to follow her parents’ desires to be a typical lady or to learn from her eccentric grandfather – Civil War hero, retired pecan farmer, and naturalist – Calpurnia struggles to balance all of her family’s expectations.  However, even in the midst of all the adventures with moth specimens, wine-making, and the discovery of what may be a new plant species, the book really isn’t just about science.

            Instead, the story gently tries to reassure all girls who differ from society’s vision of femininity that, someday, they too may eventually be accepted with a little effort on their part.  From Callie’s studies of the natural world, she sees everything has a role to play, no matter how odd or different from the other animals they may be.  For Callie, her difference comes in the form of her tomboyish, nerdy scientific nature, which her mother, her girly best friend, and her other female mentors are painstakingly trying to eliminate from her personality.  As much as Calpurnia’s grandfather encourages her to keep him company while traipsing around rural Texas backcountry, even he isn’t too confident she will make it as a scientist.  By the end of the novel, the girl is starting to be deeply troubled about her future.  To this reader, Callie would be well-placed in any time period – she’s a feminist waking up to the world.   

Finally, to Kelly’s credit, she does not sugar-coat the ending, with Callie striding off into the sunset with a future clear of difficulty for the budding naturalist.  Instead, the novel ends relatively soon after she gets a Christmas gift of the ironically titled nightmare The Science of Housewifery, making Callie feel as if she is condemned to knitting, cooking, and piano lessons for eternity.  While I won’t give away much about the semi-ambiguous final chapter about New Year’s Day in 1900, I will say I was left thinking about a quotation offered a bit earlier by Calpurnia’s grandfather, “The lesson for today is this: It is better to travel with hope in one’s heart than to arrive in safety.  Do you understand?” (233). Yes, we women do understand, and that’s what makes this novel a great example of historical fiction.  

Happy Birthday America!

I could post some Whitman, Sandburg, Emerson, Muir, or some other great American thinkers, but somehow I always go back to music for today.

So here's one of the greatest voices of America:

 

My life in books...

It’s been almost two months since I last posted, and my blog silence can mostly be attributed to the fact that I've been reading...and working and just too tired to write. I’ve read about eight since my last post: I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (the author of The Book Thief), One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, and several young adult books. I am a devoted fan to the first two authors in this list, and my high expectations were, unfortunately, not met.

For those, like myself, who were transformed after reading Zusak’s The Book Thief, Messenger comes across shallow. Although the premise is interesting and different, the book’s progression felt unnatural. The story begins with the narrator, Ed an unmotivated 20-something, stopping a robbery, which he admits is out of his character. Then, he starts to receive playing cards with mysterious instructions. Ultimately, the different cards lead him to people throughout his community whom he must help in some way--from a woman who is raped by her alcoholic husband every night to an old woman who just needs company.  The book progresses in much the same tone, and through much overdone self-reflection and many statements like “I just knew what I had to do,” the narrator calls the reader to question what we would do for a stranger in need. Although this “moral of the story” may sound cheesy, the book and it’s characters are in no way sentimental, which saves the book from being unenjoyable. Most of the book’s attraction lies with the outlying characters, the strangers in need. They are drawn with life, and as they are each saved in their own way, the reader is pulled into the main character’s mission. It’s an easy read if you like Zusak’s style.

Next, for those who were anxiously waiting those two years for the newest installment of the Thursday series, you may be a little disappointed. The book works more like an illustration of the workings of the Bookworld rather than a development in Thursday’s story. It’s clever and full of fun booky allusions just as his other books are fun and clever, but the story never develops into anything.  Most of it seems to set up the groundwork for the next book’s major mystery.  My favorite parts were when he makes fun of literary tropes. To Fforde’s credit though, he really tries to liven up our impression of books, and he explore what it means to create--to create characters, to create worlds, to create ourselves. And, if nothing else his books always inspire me to read and write more.

Finally, I get to my favorite: The Paris Wife. Let me begin by admitting that I am in no way a Hemingway scholar. In fact, despite many attempts, I just don’t like reading Hemingway. I have read several of his novels and have really tried to like his books, but most of the time I end up rolling my eyes at many of his characters...Despite this, I’ve always found his life and his persona fascinating. I’ve visited his childhood home in Chicago, I’ve sat in the back booth at Les Deux Magots in Paris (though it seems much changed since Hemingway was there), and I’ve watched the bulls run in Pampelona. My favorite read of his is A Moveable Feast. I’m drawn to the time period so often romanticized: the smoky cafes in Paris stuffed with struggling artists, the crowded bull fighting arenas in Pamplona.

The Paris Wife chronicles the relationship between him and his first wife, Hadley, and captures that time in Paris. However, more than that, the book focuses more on the creation of Hemingway’s persona through the eyes of a woman. At the book’s beginning  Hemingway is no more than a romantic, lonely young man come back from war. He’s desperate to write and desperate to be in love.  As the story progresses, he slowly creates the myth behind the man, and we meet Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound as we watch him struggle to place himself amongst the literary elite. It is very easy to hate him because he is really such an ass, but somehow the reader cannot help but be drawn to him, just as Hadley and every other woman in his life. It is hard not to admire his success and his talent and the way he gives himself to his art and life.

The book is also, probably even more so, about Hadley, and her struggle to find a place in the literary world, one that is much quicker and tumultuous than she ever wanted. Although at times the book threatens to become a book clubby book, I think it’s saved by its intelligent and unique portrayal of this famous couple. It is not over-stuffed with romance but a simple and realistic portrayal of a marriage the reader know is doomed from the beginning. It’s about the woman who is behind the myth that is behind the man...

There you have it...my past few months in books.