Just Teach: Intro/ Invitation to Read

Dear Reading Team,

I am a teacher. Specifically, I am an elementary school teacher. If I had to pick an expertise, it would be teaching reading and writing to 8–10 year old children, but I’ll teach any thing to any kid anywhere as needed. I have spent the better part of the past two decades writing about my students and my experiences as a public school teacher. Other than an OpEd or blog post here and there, the writing has been mostly for my mental health.

Six years ago I embarked on a circuitous, labyrinthine journey to write a memoir. I believe there is a need for more narratives from inside public schools in America. However, I quickly realized that publishing a true account of my experiences in the classroom would be impossible. First, I have a terrible memory and am sure to inadvertently report false events as facts (just ask my children). Second, I would definitely be sued for libel.

So I have written/ am writing a novel. Working Title: “Just Teach.” It’s the story of one teacher in one school over the course of a single school year. (Yawning yet? Don’t worry, there will be comedy and tragedy and violence and sex.) It is the story of Jenny Martin, a tired teacher in her fifth year in the classroom, hanging on by her fingernails to a career in a profession she doesn’t feel she signed up for.

Or so I think. That’s where you come in.

I am inviting you to read the book in real-time as I stitch together hundreds of vignettes into a manuscript this summer. I will post a new chapter here, on Medium, on or before Sunday of each week. If you have time and interest and good will, I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to read the draft and comment generously. I need to know what resonates, what falls flat. What makes your eyebrows go up, what makes them go down? Who is difficult to believe? Who do you want to hear more from? Where are the inconsistencies? Where is my bias offensive or distracting? Where do you lose interest? Where did I miss an oxford comma or switch a kid’s name?

If writing a memoir is a labyrinth, then writing a novel is a plastic ball pit. I know where I am, but I am feeling overwhelmed and I’m not sure how to get out and it’s honestly kind of gross. However, I accept that no written work is perfect, and it’s time to move on and birth this thing into the world.

SO… If you are curious and have a bit of time on your hands this summer, join me. I’m not sure Medium is the right medium for this conversation, but I am hoping it will suffice. I really need an audience and accountability. Thanks in advance for providing me with those.