Beyond+Words+-+The+Journey+of+One+Graduate+Teacher

In my fourth year of teaching high school, I abandoned (make that **reluctantly** abandoned) my “performer in search of an audience” style of teaching. For me, it was a decision to either leave the profession or find a way to connect more meaningfully with my students. I had begun my teaching career at a time when the teacher position was clearly and authoritatively at the front of the classroom. My very reason for becoming an English teacher was my inspirational first college English teacher – and yes, performer. What worked for her college audience didn’t translate well into my high school classroom. I was having all the fun; I was doing all the growing and learning up there in front of a sometimes amused, but for the most part, passive, or worse, bored group of students. The 21st century “Shakespeare”, if she was out there, was not going to find the muse in my class. It was not an environment where creativity and critical thinking flourished. When I wander back in my memory now to that time in search of what motivated me to change, I know that my own journal reflections had a great deal to do with it. I un-muddled there and wrote myself into some new thinking. Books helped. Even more crucial was the teaching community I was part of - a powerful group of more experienced English teachers who were very giving. Questioning and reflecting on what went wrong was not the weakness of a beginning teacher, but the only legitimate and respected way of being a teacher. The first years of trying to make my classroom primarily a place for students were not easy. Among other things, healthy survival instincts kept me afloat.

Over the years, I have grown comfortable being the proverbial “guide on the side”, or more accurately, I should say, as comfortable as it will ever be for me to not be in control, to not know where the path will lead. One thing is certain. When I opened myself to a student-centered classroom and allowed myself to feel vulnerable in that raggedy, organic, sometimes unpredictable environment, I began to truly be at home as a teacher. It has always been a journey of exploration, a walk in a tangled forest of opinions, perceptions, external expectations, inner moments of doubt, as well as inner moments of certainty.

So when I was offered the opportunity to be the core instructor for a group of 16 teachers getting their Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies at National-Louis University, it was a challenge that found me. I was open. I looked upon it as the culminating experience of a lifetime of teaching high school students and later, graduate school candidates. Reflective journaling, educational autobiography, literature review viewed through the lens of one’s own teaching/learning experience, action research focused on one’s own classroom all were a good fit with my constructivist philosophy and experience that told me a 22 month commitment to a group of graduate students was the school I needed for myself. Little did I know how good a fit as I went on a journey of a lifetime with my students.

The first gift came in the form of Cara, a bright young secondary art teacher, who found keeping a weekly journal difficult. For this 21st century teacher, writing wasn’t working as a tool for reflection, so she approached me with her sketch book that included some pages filled with collages of text, pictures/words/artifacts pasted in, sketches, paintings, etc. that worked for her. Could this be her form of journaling? “Looks good to me!” I tried to control my enthusiasm. At least one person had read my handout on journaling, encouraging the students to doodle, paint, write in a stream of consciousness style, or do whatever worked for them – to find their “vein of gold” as a teacher (Julie Cameron, [|The Vein of Gold. A Journey to Your Creative Heart,]New York, G. P. Putman&Sons, 1996). That was the beginning. I admit to taking on the role of shameless cheerleader, as more students looked at Cara’s work and decided they wanted to be part of the fun of doing something unique, something unprecedented. They began actually believing the NLU conceptual framework that there is no “right” way to reflect, there is no template, no prescribed format that is better than any other. In this atmosphere that valued and encouraged freedom, they found their unique voices.

For some, particularly the art teachers, this form of journaling and autobiographical writing felt comfortable from the beginning. For others, notably, the writers in the group, it meant leaving the comfort zone of words, the control of linear composing, the satisfaction of a finished product. When it came to the literature review, several were tempted to abandon the challenging process, admitting that “it would have been easier to write it.” All shared a common commitment to set out on a journey without knowing where it would take them. Their alternative routes became much more about a process than product for most of them, a process enriched with all the layering of the history of a journey that winds in unplanned directions and reflects the rewarding richness of hairpin turns, Aha’s and Aaaah’s, a journey that teaches one to trust openness to “the road less travelled.” For these students, the focus shifted from a project that would fulfill the requirements for an A to a richly-nuanced multi-representational work in progress. All agreed on one thing: this is a process that never ends. For each of them, their projects developed over time and took on a life of their own. Students surprised themselves not only with the unique insights they gained and the deep levels of awareness they tapped into as they abandoned traditional academic security, but with a respect for the newly experienced academic rigor of the process of finding their own voice. And listening to each other’s voices along the way! The true measure: it has become an habitual way of reflecting on their lives as teachers.

My own part in this as their core instructor was what I like it to be, a fellow traveler creating a safe space, reflecting back to them their discoveries, celebrating their uniquely creative expression, highlighting a rare moment of insight, or asking the probing question. My own moment of truth came when they handed me a blank journal and asked me to participate in one of their projects. An English teacher and an art teacher had collaborated to send 30 blank journals out into the school and community in imitation of the [|1001 journal project]. As in this original project after which they modeled it, the inside cover encouraged the person into whose hands the journal would fall to draw, paint, doodle, write, paste in memorabilia, express yourself in any way, then pass it on to someone else, until finally on a given day, they were instructed to mail it back to the originators.

I have always loved to write and have accumulated stacks of journal over the years, with instructions to next of kin to burn upon my death. Not that I rush to the blank page. Rather, the blank page has a way of sending me flying to the refrigerator to see if anything new has appeared to give me a few minutes of reprieve. Nevertheless, words have always been a comfortable environment for me. But when this beautiful blank journal was handed to me, a wave of fearful excitement washed over me. I wanted to do what they were doing, was my first response. But I really didn’t know where to start. And still a room away, my old friend the refrigerator, storing the comfort food! The moment stood still, waiting for me to abandon my trusted familiar way of making meaning for myself, inviting me to take the leap into a new kind of expression. What richness did I have inside to tap that could not be reduced to mere words alone? Until that moment when I actually got out paints, drawing pens, glue, etc., I really did not fully comprehend what a creative and demanding activity they were all immersed in. If I ever forget the pages I created (and drooled over inordinately and totally out of proportion to their objective quality) before sending it on, I will never forget the exhilaration and creative energy that surged through me for days – that power of creating something from nothing as I went where I had never gone before, without guidelines or trusted landmarks. I had risked as they had. I had faced down the difficulty, overcome the challenge, and was in timid, but certain possession of a process internalized as a rare treasure that I could now call upon to reflect and go within.

Several John Ciardi ripples from that stone thrown into the pond to report! I started to paint, something I was going to put off until my academic life allowed me total concentration on a new and different venture. I now see the total compatibility of the two, an unexpected gift these courageous teachers sent my way. My drawing and painting fuels my teaching. Sketches find their way into my reflective journals. Paint fuses with the word driven pages. The process brings me to places I have never been before. My teaching is enriched.

Also, as I start with a new group of NLU graduate students, I am keenly aware that, should I try to lead them by the hand into the same expressions of their learning, should I try to impose the same norms arrived at by my first class, I would be violating the very integrity of the process that guided each student through their own richly-layered and complex creative expressions of learning. Even now I am designing and writing foolproof strategies to allow them discover their “[|vein of gold].” And heading for the refrigerator! Emmy Theisen

betheisen@att.net