Those Who Teach, Teach

Which I guess you could read as "those who 'teach, teach'" if you wanted to be perverse. 

Today, I'm hoping for less interesting news. No economic roller coaster. No political death chants. Calm. 

Failing that, I'll be braving a lovely soaking rain to get to school. It will be a damp walk. But first, and by first I mean just about now, I'll be working a whole batch of new research into my paper on ecocomposition, place, and creative writing pedagogy. I've been rediscovering how much creative writing pedagogy depends on Romantic notions of inspiration and the singular genius. And it's amazing to me how much "inspiration" and "genius" correspond to race and class privilege. 

Beyond those categories, which, I recognize, are huge, most pedagogy boils down to craft and drill with little hope that any of the students will succeed as writers. Of course, that last is true, though it may be self-fulfilling. But mostly, students will go on to pursue what they were going to pursue anyway. So, what's the role of the creative writing instructor? Let's just go ahead and kick "inspiration" and "genius" out as hopelessly vague. Where do we go? What are we doing? What are we trying to do? 

Of course, this runs against the writers who see every moment that takes them from "their work" as a kind of poison--or torture?--that must be avoided at all costs. All great writers, you will be assured, didn't teach. Except that they mostly did something else. And it turns out that a lot of them taught. This attitude gets particularly obnoxious when repeated to colleagues who are doing research and academic writing at a Research 1 school. Further, it ignores the possibility that you could do the work of your own class, and/or that you could learn something interesting from your students. But then, the attitude that you have "real work" to do elsewhere suggests that there's some kind of inflated ego that might preclude listening to others. 

Anyway, I'm interested in trying to get students to engage with place, understand their own situatedness, and see how the poems they write fit in place, and in the cultural places that poetry itself is situated. We'll see if it makes the cut.   

Comments

[Benjamin]

I applaud your romanticism (it IS that). I am perhaps burned out and jaded, and though I still deep down agree with your idea of learning from students and having your work be fed in some ways through and from the classroom, I cannot sustain my work at all outside of it because of it. I feel interrupted and intruded upon, and this is a practical issue, not a higher than thou attitude toward students. And I also think that what you propose is far, far easier (and sometimes actually realized) in a specialized classroom full of upperclassmen; I've noticed this night day differnece in teaching poetry lit or advanced workshop over intros and freshamn comp. I grant I am exahausted, but I don't think one's own work can be significantly grown in the classroom--unless it is purely pedagogical work, which is maybe what you're referring to. If it's writing, if it's sustained research and writing, I just can't see it, especially over heavier course loads and 3-5 day per week calss meetings.