24

"We Might As Well": A Student's Point Of View

When I was little and still calling my female teachers "mother," the beginning of each school year promised another round of new-smelling books, sour·milk cafeterias, and anxieties of facing my summer playmates on competi· tive jungle-gyms. It meant contending with my fear of the sixth graders; and the person who, for nine months, would sec more of me than either of my parents- the towering figure I would learn lo love: the all-powerful and greal·mo· ver of the classroom, my teacher.

Few parents realize what an important role teachers play in the lives of their children. The classroom, where the student spends the major part of his waking hours, becomes a home away from home, and he relates to his classroom situation accordingly. He views his classmates as siblings with whom he rivals for the teacher's affection, adminis· tered in the form of praise, good grades, and attention. Everyone is familiar with the case of the problem child, who bears his appellation because he engages in behavior aimed solely at gaining attention from the teacher, even if it is in the form of "Quit talking!" or "Johnny, sit down!" Undoubtedly, the child is attempting to gain the attention he lacks at home, from his teacher. Some children will strive lo gain positive attention from their teachers by displaying their academic proficiency, while others will perform scholastically to avoid punishment from the adult who wields so much influence in their lives.

The teacher, then, is simply more than a neutral figure in the eyes of young students. I can recall none of my classmates being indifferent to the teacher. As a grade school student I sought my teachers' affections in many ways. I did my lessons well, stayed after school to talk, and even wrote poetry about them. In the third grade I sang my

Barbara Brown

teacher a song every week - old favorites like, Lipstick On Your Collar. I'll never forget how overjoyed I was when my fourth brrade teacher wrote on my report card, "Barbara is such a sweet little girl; I have loved and enjoyed her." But that was the year I trotted lo the nurse's office to vomit nearly every other day, because this teacher was in n foul mood.

The attitude a student possesses about education in general is inextricably bound lo his experiences in grade school. (This does not mean that as he becomes older his teachers cease to be important; however, the influence the educator possesses exists in the form of grades.) Naturally, this attitude towards academia will be manifest in a student's performance, and no subject is ns dependent upon a student's educational attitude ns the subject of creative writing. A child can be cajoled or threatened lo learn lo add numbers, read words on a page, or recite the capital and products of Paraguay, but he cannot be forced lo be creative.

Creativity may be thought of ll5 the ability to respond to situations in new ways, thereby using the imagination to integrate existing knowledge and arrive at some new conclusion, which, hopefully, will be more than the sun of its parts. Since creativity must grow from a reintrepretation of knowledge the child already has, it is impossible for a teacher to ask a student to write a paper on some topic that lies outside the realm of his experience, and expect him to produce a masterpiece. Children must be allowed lo write about things that are important lo them. For instance, when I was in the second grade my sister had a baby. Bursting with joy, I wanted to tell everyone how good it was to have a little nephew. I would have dedicated hours

ton paper on Lillie Harry, bul, in the second grade we were too busy writing sentences that had spelling words in them. In the third and fourth grades we wrote papers on dinosaurs and space ships; in the fifth grade we dedicated our writing talents lo the pioneers of the American west and historical heroes. It was not until our sixth grade reading clnss \cacher told us lo write 11 paper about "My Most Unforgettable Experience" that I wrote about Little Harry; and it was difficult for me to remember just how I felt when I held 11

baby for the first time. Although I had lost much of my ebullience about the subject, it was still more interesting than writing a book report on Cwter's wt Srond.

As 11 student matures, the relationships he forms with members of his peer group become increasingly important to him. No longer docs he look primarily lo his family and teachers for emotional support; for his friends are often more reinforcing. As high school students get 11 taste of close interpersonal relationships with friends and change physically, they form sclf·conccpts which Lend lo be excessively dependent upon social factors. Not only mem· bers of the opposite sex, but the student's relation to the rest of society becomes important, i.e., he begins to wonder about what career he ii pursue, and if he isn't thinking in occupational terms, his counselor makes certain he does.

Both the seventh and eight grades offered us little opportunity to write. Our teachers were primarily inter· ested in our knowledge of the structure of English, and spent many hours drilling us in dangling participles, misplaced modifiers, and split infinitives. Oddly enough, we never got the chnnce to find out if our participles ever dangled, or if our modifiers were indeed misplaced, or if our infinitives were split, for we seldom wrote anything.

And, the up-the-row·and·down·thc-row method of drilling us on writing methods and parts of speech made some of us anxious about writing in general. We wrote some book reports, but they were considered unnecessary chores - so we copied what we could from the inside covers of the book's dust jacket. In short, the most creative writings I S4W during those two years were the notes written by the boy who sat al the desk in front of me and sneaked me take·o£fs on the Burma Shave signs he had seen along the highway.

In the ninth grade our teacher announced thnt we could begin Lo write stories by composing our own fiction. We started at him with a mixture of disbelief and panic. We had never written fiction and simply did not know where lo begin. Our dismayed teacher spent the rest of the year telling us that we just weren't very creative, and that he didn't understand why we weren 'l taking advantage of our opportunities to use our imaginations.

The composition training I received in high school WllS

confusing, to say the least. Our tenth grade teacher requested that we compose poetry by unembarassingly proclaiming that he had a preCerence for equivocation: it was good to make the reader dig for meaning. Consequent· ly, much of my poetry had no meaning al all ; but the more nebulous it was, the better he liked it.

In my junior year in high school, our teacher was singularly intent on extinguishing the cryptic style we had been taught the year before. She assigned us nothing but writing exercises, descriptive paragraphs, and papers on the themes of books and plays. Analyzing literary works was a slow and agonizing process for most students. Though it was, and still is, necessary for students to recognize

25

26

meaning in great literary works, they must still be able lo relate it to their own experiences before it becomes important enough to write about. Since students are not allowed to write about their own experiences, they usually don't think about applying a book or a poem to their own lives. So, they deal with the work as something they neeJ understand only enough lo vaguely paraphruse in a paper. Perhaps teachers fail lo present literature and composition as something that can be personal because they fear students will draw a blank if they are simply asked to relate what is important to them (the teachers). Obviously, composition can't be personal when somebody else is telling the student what lo write.

Although many high school stuJents are disinterested in and apathetic about writing, it is obvious that they are not emotional vacuums. Usually they don't get the opportunity lo write about anything other than what they can't relate to. If more teachers allowed students lo write about their sweethearts/puppy loves (is there anything more important in high school than one's first love?), friends, families, and ideas concerning God and moral issues (the topics that I spent all night discussing with girlfriends at slumber parties), more students would want to write. It is certainly indicative of a lack of imagination and empathy when two students are held after school for writing each other notes in class about their religious doubts.

Not allowing students to write about what is important lo them is not the only drawback in the teaching of composition. Another hindrance lies in the administration of grades. After my senior English teacher gave me an F on 11 theme, and a C- on 11 term paper (because, he said, my margins weren't straight enough), I literally drew a blank when he assigned a theme. In desperation I had my boyfriend, mother, and girlfriend helping me write my papers, and each time I sweated blood over a theme and received a C for my efforts, my self-confidence and desire to write toppled. [ entered college wounded and dreading English composition. We'd been informed that English composition would "weed out" the good from the bad, and that about half of the class would flunk-out.

Luckily, my freshman English teacher didn't flunk me for misspelling a word on a paper, as I'd been scared into believing all college teachers did. He even let us hand in late papers in case of emergency; and, lo and behold, our first assignment was on 11 topic we had at least been thinking about: the Pope's declaration concerning The Pill. Most students, anxious to possess more of the freedom to openly express their ideas, relaxed enough to write what they really Celt. At least the assignment asked for our opinions

on something that was of extreme importance to us. From the standpoint of being meaningful, no theme has ever been as important lo me as the one our instructor assigned next. It wasn't difficult for me lo remember the first time I had experienced love, and [ jumped at the chance to write about it; having to wait as long lo write about my first boyfriend as I had to write about my baby nephew. Happily, students in my class seemed to be enjoying English more each time we met. Of course, the instructor's emphatic manner was u major factor in relaxing the students, and his theme assignments were actually cncour· aging students to write about what they felt. After the first three themes, however, 11 damper was put on the rather free writing atmosphere because our instructor began grading our papers. Once again I flinched when a theme was assigned, as I feared that perhaps the high-school-stay-up· all-nigh t-w ri ti ng·a· th em e-an d-gc t·a-bad-gradc·anyway syndrome was once again in effect. Luckily, the instructor was "just" (if there is such 11 thing) in his grading, and that removed much of the pressure. But grades still loomed as a source of fear. It bothered me that some of my classmates received lower grades thun I, even if what they had written took more time and was more meaningful to them, receiving 11 bad grade on a theme was such potent punishment. It took little effort to empathize with those who had tried and succeeded in their terms, but had failed in the eyes of the instructor.

The fact that our instructor graded our essays didn't hamper most of the students' enjoyment of English, however, for he urged us lo relate our own experiences in our themes, and seemed lo instinctively recognize when students wrote about 11 topic that was important to them, and graded accordingly. For those students who found writing difficult because of structural matters, our instruc· tor carefully outlined different methods of organizing an essay, pointing to examples of essays from our anthology. He also enumerated the pitfalls involved in writing, and referred to them throughout the semester. We diligently underlined passages in essays from our textbook that indicated techniques we should employ when composing our own essays. I don't know how many students made an effort to refer back to the information given us by the instructor, but the emphasis he placed on clear writing, without making the entire business sound stultifying and difficult, had a salutary effect on the students. We were more aware of how we were expressing ourselves, mainly because we were assigned topics that were somewhat amenable to self-expression. And, as a rule, student papers and grades became increasingly better as the semester

progressed. As our writing improved with time, so did our communi­

cation with the instructor. At the beginning of the semester he made visiting him in his office compulsory. Students welcomed this assignment, and many took advantage of his open-door policy throughout the semester. Some found that one hour spent talking to 11 teacher could be more meaningful than a semester of classroom hours. The rapport between our instructor and the class was clearly manifest in the way students began participating in classroom discus­sions.

During the first semester of my freshman year my attitudes about writing changed considerably. No longer did I dread writing; sometimes I even found it enjoyable. My instructor seldom hesitated to praise my good points, and to gently point out the flaws. I knew he was humanly incapable of handing back an essay with "This is TRASH!" scrawli:,d across the first page in red ink, as my high school English teacher once did; and this alleviated most of my fears. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was thankful. My teacher was humane.

Now, when a student finds a humane English teacher in the department, she does not shop around! The next semester I entered my instructor's class with a much more positive attitude than I had had during the preceding semester. Second semester was spent discussing and writing about our own experiences. Somehow, we managed to juxtapose our own experiences with the literature we read, mostly works dealing with the loss of innocence, such as Billy Budd, and Great Gatsby. After each essay, the instructor dittoed a couple of essays, and split the cl11BS up into small groups in which we not only discussed exposi­tory style, but also our personal experiences: what our innocence, or lack of it, meant and how different our attitudes were from the previous semester. A strange thing h11ppened. We began knowing each other as people.

The second semester was also devoted to style. Our instructor gave us a few exercises in forming our own voice and simulating the style of other writers, and many students became aware of their possessing a voice and being 11ble to utilize it in their essays. As a writer's style is the identity he breathes into his work - an identity that can only become manifest if the student is writing about something he has experienced - our instructor gave us opportunities to write on whatever subject we wanted. Our final paper, for instance, was a critique on the Beatles' album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

By the time the first term of my sophomore year rolled around, our instructor was quite exuberant about the

interperson11l communication that had occurred within our small talk groups during the l11St semester. The first few weeks of class we read and discussed Homer's Odyssey. Many of the students were not as excited about reading a classic Greek work ns they had been about reading Great Gatsby, or even King Lear. When we were assigned to do a paper on the Odyssey, understand11bly, m11ny of us balked. Few of us h11d any origin11I idCllS about the work, and our papers displayed 11 lllck of creativity concerning it. We knew this already. That's why we felt like a pack of little creeps when our instructor told us, in no uncertain terms, how dis11ppointed he was th11t we simply parlayed hack in our papers what he already had expressed in lecture. According· ly, he slapped ffillny students with a low grade. A few of us existed in a stupor of self-recrimination until the next class period; the rest of us just shrugged our shoulders and concluded that the instructor was like all the rest - it h11d just taken a year for his "good-guy" veneer to wear off.

And then, during the next class period, he 11dmitted that he had treated us unfairly by insisting that we write in one particular fashion, and, thereafter, he would attempt to establish an atmosphere of free learning in the class. Well, we sensed we had been let off the academic hook, but what was an 11tmosphere of free learning? No grades on our themes? More discussion between ourselves and fewer lectures? No compulsory assignments or attendance? The instructor would be like one of us? We were amazed­doubtful- stupefied. Why, it would never work. We'd been loo steeped in the old-line-student-dependency-on-the­te11cher-and-grades experience to exercise "free will." But we reffillined after class that day and spent every other class period during the semester trying to make it work!

Cert11inly, there were some hang-ups. In the first place, we didn't know what to do about 11 final grade for the course. It was suggested that, in sort of a parody on the system, we all receive A's. That was more than fine with everyone; it boosted out grade-point averages, and placed the instructor in the role of benevolent GPA-raiser. I can imagine worse roles to play, but it did obscure wh11t we were attempting to accomplish: 11 learning situntion in which grades played no part. Wh11t a formidable task it was for us to think th11t way after depending on grades as one source of education for so long. Some of my classmates felt guilty because they didn't think they spent 11 suitable 11mount of time and effort on their classwork, but received A's anyway. The observable behavior of the students, however, spoke well for our new, non-systematic 11pproach because attendance was high (a greater percentage of students came to our Saturday literature classes than

27

28

attended any other course I had meeting that day), essays were written and handed-in on time, und the literature was discussed. People I suspected of having no vocal chords spoke up in class.

I, for one, was ecstatic. For once I began interpreting literature for myself. I even dared to write an essay comparing Hesse's Steppenwolf, with Sophocles' Oedipus Rer, and felt rather inspired about the whole thing. 1 tried my hand at composing a character sketch in Chauceri11n style and found that I wnsn 't totally uncreative. My confidence in my own ideas was enhanced.

My classmates were also very relieved, and truly felt desirous and capable of experiencing literature instead of simply giving it 11 perfunctory treatment as they had done in the past. I heard this conviction expressed again and again in the journals we wrote cont11ining our impressions of the class. As we read our journals aloud to each other, I was struck by the fact that I really had the opportunity to get to know the people in my class - they were individu11ls lo me. Now, I hate to sound mystical, but the experience set up a reverberation of positive vibes. Seeing u lethargic student actually identify with Hamlet, thereby gaining insight into his own experience, is enough to set off a string of pleasant nerve impulses for 11 long time.

We've come buck. And this semester we're taking English on pass-fail, (those of us who have decided that grades play no part in the course). It's 11 shame that we have to make a concerted effort in deciding about something as trivial as whether or not we'll accept an A, or a P, but it's a choice that is integral to our views about what education re11lly is. Slowly but surely, we are having an experience that smacks of learning. That old feeling of classroom detachedness is beginning to wane; the teacher is ceasing to be an object with supernatural powers.

Isn't that what education is all about? Indeed, isn't that what writing is all about: to help us realize some of the answers to those old familiar questions, Who are we? What is the meaning of our lives? Why are we the way we are and what can we do about it? Well, we have a class - all of us possessing a miniscule amount of knowledge about how to relate to one another. One of us possesses a superior amount of knowledge concerning our vehicle - literature -and he will help us with the facts.

That's all there is to know 11bout my literature class and creative writing, I think. We have ourselves and the aggregate of experiences that make us what we arc, and we have our tools: mouths, minds, pens, paper and books. We might as well communicate.

Barbara Brown, a graduate of Shawnee Mission East High School in Kamas City, is a junior at the University of Hawaii. Presently working as a Research Assistant in the University's Psychology Department, Miss Brown hopes to attain a degree in Clinical Psychology from Stoneybrooke, Long Island.