The Art of Waiting, Part 1
And the weight of worry in the classroom
Note: I had intended to post this in January 2023, but I felt it included too many specific details about one of my students, so I pulled it. I’ve continued to work with this student, however, and to talk about this post and its subject matter. As a result this student and his family have not only given permission to use his name, but have also inspired — and collaborated with me on — The Art of Waiting, Part 2, which I plan to publish in a couple weeks.
A friend gave me a tiny notebook during COVID, complete with a little drawing her four-year-old daughter snuck in before giving it to me. It radiated a special love and care I needed during that confounding time in teaching. Channeling that love and care to my students, I used it back then to keep track of those who worried me–those who weren’t showing progress, Zoom cameras always off, not responding to my emails…I was unable to see them in my classroom so I was blind to what was going on in their worlds. They worried me, so into the worry book their names went. I’d record my attempts to help, their progress (if any), updated plans. A way to wrap my arms around them in a socially distanced world.
I’m sure we all keep some form of worry book when it comes to the humans in our lives, each metaphorical page and pen stroke evidence of our connection with them. Of our love for them. And it might surprise us (or not) to find our names in others’ worry books. Worry feels like a thoughtful gift to give and to receive–if for only a short time. Ongoing worry, however, is torture. We don’t want to worry forever. But over the past five or so years, an extra layer of worry has settled into the cracks and crevices of education as we help students both navigate and cope with grades, GPA’s, and rigid time frames for learning. It’s the ever-present anxiety this generation of students faces. Joy still exists in the classroom. We have fun. We laugh. But it now shares space with this amorphous entity that’s wreaking havoc on their mental health.
So this school year I set out with a focus on helping students develop writing confidence in hopes to steal back some of that space and to bolster their wellbeing.
It’s mid December and I page through the worry book during a surprise snow day. Worrying. I want to spend my day chronicling my students’ growing confidence in writing, gathering their candid feedback, curating their befores and afters. An infomercialblog of all the awesome. But I can’t. While I’ve managed to compose a list of impactful tips, things haven’t been awesome for all my students: the worry book holds a dozen who have remained stuck, and they don’t feel confident at all. They haven’t written enough to legitimately pass the class. Not even close. We have only one month left. Time is ticking. What are they waiting for?
I wonder about my own waiting. Sometimes I can’t wait. I follow up too quickly, eager to see progress after the latest strategy, impatiently searching for that spark we can use to fire up. In those moments I feel the one-sided nature of our relationship, me pulling them along to places they’re not yet ready to travel.
Perhaps they’ll appease me, perhaps it’s the push they need, or perhaps we’re dancing on the edge of a power play, which we both know will yield nothing good.
So sometimes I wait too long.
Too long to check in when their eyes are glued to their phones instead of their writing — Too long to contact parents, unintentionally undercutting their ability to help — Too long to say I care about them because I’m not sure they’ll believe me.
Ideally, I’d like to give my students some tools, a little direction, and time. Time to try, to fail, to learn, to feel the power of their own efforts. I want to be a resource when struggle hits, not their rescuer. Ideally, I’d build in more waiting. Watchful waiting.
The end of this semester-long class is looming, however, and we’re running out of time. I can’t help but think of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride: “Don’t rush me, sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”
But for the worry-book students, what else could there be at this point but rotten miracles, rushing within the remaining days of the grading period to push, pull, or drag them over the D- threshold? What should I have done differently? Wait more? Wait less? Wait differently?
It’s mid January, and I review the vestiges of desperately submitted work, enter final grades, and double check I’m making good on the “deals” I’ve cut (Lord…). Then I think about Sawyer, a senior creative writing student. He’s been in the worry book since November when I stopped seeing his writing and began receiving information from his counselor about his increasing anxiety and depression. All he’s produced are a couple solidly written paragraphs of a story and two brilliant black out poems (which are harder to create than meets the eye).
I reread the worry book notes of my connections with Sawyer over the past several weeks, all the strategies, all the tricks, all the waiting, forever hopeful this would be the week he’d write. I remember his desperation to just be done and the extra time spent with me every day during the last week of the semester trying to catch up. I reflect on our great conversations and how drawn he is to medieval settings: Knights of the Round Table, chivalry, heraldry, and of course Dungeons and Dragons. He wants to bring elements like this into his story, but his excitement turns to frustration once he returns to his work, now hating all his ideas. Lists, graphic organizers, our recorded discussions, nothing seems to help him break through, and I, myself, have begun to feel powerless to help him. He breaks down into sobs on the last day, having no additional writing to submit.
Should I have intervened earlier in the semester? Have I been too pushy or smothering over the past several weeks? Have I <gulp> added to Sawyer’s anxiety and depression? Yet, I’ve seen enough of his writing to know he can do it, and he wants to write. So…what is he waiting for? What’s in his worry book?
If only we had more time, I think, as I do at the end of every semester. I can’t bring myself to enter Sawyer’s F, a grade 100% justifiable based on the little work he’s completed. But as a semester-only class, our system demands it. A stray thought compels me to check Sawyer’s second-semester schedule. He has a study hall that aligns with one of my second-semester creative writing classes.
Sawyer can have more time. He can work among a new set of writers, participating in our free writes and peer reviews, as he continues to chip away at the writing barricade he’s been fighting. Another chance to see the power of his own efforts.
To some this might not seem fair–to give one student so much extra time–but there’s a lot about our educational system that doesn’t seem fair, and for once this system has aligned to provide a unique opportunity. How can we not try it?
I hesitate for a split moment: Am I setting a dangerous precedent? Maybe. But is it more dangerous than the countless times I’ve been asked to lower my expectations so a student can pass? Of course, no one ever uses those words, but the desperation to check the box always hangs in the air. While I could care less about the actual grades, I hate the power they hold within the educational system. So I decide to pull in the opposite direction, hoping to give Sawyer the chance to see the power is not within the grade but within himself, and I send my recommendation to administration.
It’s the beginning of 2nd semester, and Sawyer’s new classmates clap after hearing his write-in response. In a couple minutes he’ll return to the short story brainstorming document he has shared with me, in which he’ll continue to work toward the story writing learning targets from first semester. Once he has met those targets, he’ll return to his study hall. He’s got a lot more to write. And to talk about. And to revise. But Sawyer is thankful for the opportunity.
He is an enigma: I don’t know if this extended time will work — if he’ll finally let go of self-doubt and trust the process, trust me, trust himself— but for now the worry book sits on a shelf, closed. It’s time for me to wait. Again. But don’t think for a minute that waiting means doing nothing.
