Teaching with Tim

     I started this summer Teach-for-America-style, with some Big Goals: read 6,500 pages, submit 5 short stories for publication, and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.  So before I dig up all my hopes and fears about starting teaching in September, I guess I should summarize my progress towards those goals. 

     1) Reading:  According to my “Official Reading Record,” which only counts pages for books I have completed, I have finished 14 books (4,547 pages) since the beginning of this summer.  To be on pace to make 6,500 pages by August 23, I should have read 4,842 pages by now… so I’m a little behind, but close.  I admit that most of my reading has been light—somehow I found myself reading Stephen King and Ray Bradbury instead of Melville or Joyce.  And, despite the objections of certain puritans, I have counted audiobooks in my final page count.  But more interesting for you, maybe, will be which of these books is worth your time.  I gave every book I read a subjective rating on a scale of one to five. I won’t bother mentioning 3-, 2-, and 1-star books (The popularity of The Nanny Diaries baffles me).  Several books got four stars, and I would highly recommend all of them: Angela’s Ashes (McCourt), The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing (Bank), This Boy’s Life (Wolff), and Xenocide (Card).  Only two books have received the coveted 5-star rating so far.  One was Tolkien’s Return of the King, which got five stars by default, since this was my third time reading it.  The other was Michael Crichton’s memoir, Travels. Crichton recounts his journey from Harvard Medical school intern to amateur anthropologist to best-selling author to Hollywood psychedelic guru.  Something about the wacky, hyper-imaginative angle from which Crichton views the world really engaged me.  The other potential 5-star book I’m reading is Ken Dornstein’s memoir, The Boy who Fell from the Sky.  Dornstein tells the story of his brother’s death in the 1988 Pan-Am disaster over Lockerbie, then delves into the emotional aftermath with unforgettable and sometimes shocking honesty (how’s that for a dust jacket lead?).  I’m only 100 pages in, so Dornstein doesn’t have a lock on that 5^th star yet, but he’s on his way.  For the rest of my summer reading I’m going to tackle some of the books that got pushed to the end of my list (English Teacher’s Companion, your time will come).

     2) Writing: The UCLA course has been wonderful.  I’ve only finished three complete stories so far, but my professor wants to nominate one of them for a writing award that includes a $500 cash prize… how could I not be excited about that?  The story hasn’t won anything yet, of course, but the nomination itself was a nice validation.  I have some fragments that I’m going to try to pull together into complete stories so that I have 5 pieces send by September.  My last story was about how hard it is to become ourselves when so often we reverse that process by passively allowing others to determine who we are.  I don’t know how well I got that across in the story, but I managed to include gorillas, cocaine, disposable cameras, and Incan Ruins. I guess that counts for something.  

     3) What to do with the rest of my life (or, put more simply, what to do after this year of teaching):  I can see myself making the jump to high school, teaching internationally, moving to journalism… many possibilities continuously swirl around in my mind, with the need to support myself as the constant common denominator.  I miss my family and friends in Seattle.  Clean air, comfortable temperatures, and trees would be nice, but I hesitate at the idea of an all-out “return to the womb.”  I suppose the decision I make will have to depend on how well this year goes.

     My summer of reading, writing, and reflection is already starting to feel like a misty memory.  Late August—anxiety season—has struck.  Southeast Middle School has seen some major off-season changes: our principal and assistant principal are both leaving, enrollment is down, several teaching positions have been cut, and our funding for supplementary programs is at risk under the new State budget.  This adds to the general sense of disquiet I have about my new responsibilities next year.  I’m chair of the English Department?  They want me to plan professional development?  Serve as an example of excellent teaching?  I often feel that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.  As I flip through the pile of professional literature I set aside for myself—Content Area Reading, Strategies that Work, Reading for Understanding–I am often depressed by its conservatism, its endless practicality, its exhaustive collections of graphic organizers to help English Language Learners navigate expository texts.  A part of me recoils at these nitty-gritty teaching manuals and longs for the more idealistic pedagogical literature, like Kozol’s Savage Inequalities or Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  And still another part of me doesn’t even want that.  This part of me graduated from college two years ago and isn’t even positive that he’s supposed to be a teacher. 

     In order to succeed next year, I guess I have to push those parts of myself to the side.  I have to read chapters with titles like “Inferential Thinking: Reading Between the Lines” and, somehow, find ways to connect them to concrete classroom practices.  I have to schedule field trips, buy posters, create a classroom management plan that moves kids’ reading levels up and attitude levels down.  I’ve got to make another attempt at playing the role of the kind, wise teacher I’ve always wanted to be.  When I meet my new students, all of this will feel exciting, I hope.  But right now it is a little bit terrifying.   

More Long Lost July: Me with family and brooding volcano