I had no idea…
I can tell she isn’t paying attention. Her focus is off somewhere in LaLa Land. She appears to be doodling. And every now and then (gasp!), her eyes close.
Great. Another creative student who will use that very title as an excuse for not being fully present in my classroom.
This was my thinking a few years back on the third or fourth day of a class I teach using play and improvisation to develop soft-skills in designers. The irony isn’t lost on me.
The assignment. Share with the class a story. This particular story was to invite the listeners back to the day when you discovered your acceptance in to your current college. I figured it was something the whole class had in common, yet the vehicle for the theme would be unique to each student. I was hoping to sneak in some empathy and vulnerability via storytelling.
A few students share. Lovely. Moving. I can see the class begin to see each other through a different lens. Sharing their various backgrounds and struggles, and that one “YAY!” day when the call or letter arrived, was delightfully infectious, and doing the very thing I set out to do.
BUT. This one young woman. Ugh, this one young woman. She’s unapologetically not listening when others share. It is blatant! I’m irritated at her disrespect. I reluctantly allow her to share when it’s her turn.
She begins to paint a picture of a beautiful late summer day by a lake. Her and a friend are about to swim in their regular, local watering hole. She jumps in. Smashes her head on a hidden rock. Spends the entire next year in a hospital. Her senior year of high school. She loses the ability to speak. Loses some memories. Before the accident she excelled academically, not so much as a creative. Yet the accident, strangely enough, had awakened in her the ability to draw. And draw beautifully. Drawing became her only means of communication. She processed what others said through drawing. She drew something for her application to college because her past skills were compromised, and voila! She got in. After a year, with arduous therapy, verbal language returned, along with her memories.
She then said, “Sometimes it looks like I’m looking off or not present. I am. I’m processing what you are saying through images. I also draw a lot instead of taking notes. It’s how I study best.”
Did you just hear my stomach fall out of my body?
I teach kindness in my classroom. I want my students to understand the importance of vulnerability, compassion, collaboration. That we are all human coming from varying places, each inherent with challenges. I want them to understand one another.
And here I am. The so-called facilitator of the group. Doing the very thing I hold contemptuous in others. In that moment, I realized in my deepest core that as a teacher I compartmentalize my students with quick assumptions. I had no idea. I truly thought I was the exact opposite.
That young lady’s story sticks with me daily. It changed me on a cellular level. It was a pretty major shift in my relationships to my students. I had a big bite of humble pie that day, and I no longer am a quick allocater of titles. I’m grateful for that student, and for my ability to remain teachable even when it’s kind of yucky.
