Teaching Writing as a Way of Living

My instincts often tell me that teachers in general fail to consider something very important when it comes to education, teaching, and the learning process. In many ways, I consider myself fortunate to have come through my current teaching position by an alternative path, (a BA in English/Rhetoric, rather than an Education degree, and years of practical field experience), because I lack the same pedagogical background an average MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) student does. I've had to teach largely on instinct and my own personal experience with writing and reading (which doesn't lessen the importance of pedagogy by any means). However, it's my personal belief or "gut feeling" that often enough, young teachers come out of college twisted, tied, and bound up with more educational theories, models, and benchmark standards than they know what to do with.

I've seen this firsthand in many workshops, conferences, and the few non-matriculated Education courses I've taken over the past few years. At the risk of sounding flippant, instruction in Education and the teaching process has become very "buzz-word" and "teaching model" oriented. I'll admit this is mere generalization on my part, but I often imagine waves of students graduating from teaching preparatory programs armed to the teeth with every instruction model, classroom behavioral technique, lesson plan guideline, and new learning theory, with the most important component of the learning process left out:

The students themselves.

That's right, them. The ones who foil our lesson plans every time, don't fit into the behavioral models we learned in college, don't understand all the nifty lesson plans and classroom activities that we learned, were taught out of a book, or tried out in a student-teaching environment. They're the ones who could care a less about at thesis statement, proper essay structure, paragraph unity and coherence, unifying theme, or supporting details. At the high school level, these may be the students who have no desire to attend college; at the college level; they're students who've never come to understand why words matter. They've not been exposed to the concept that writing is deeply important on a fundamental, personal level - and why their writing in particular can matter not only to them, but to others around them.

At both instructional levels, students have certainly been taught models, graphic organizers, outlines, bullet points, pre-writing mapping strategies, brainstorming, and a variety of research techniques. However, on many levels - I wonder if they've been taught to care about their writing and their words. Have they been led to consider why their words matter and that writing is their voice, them on paper? Have they been exposed to the idea that writing not only changes them, but can also change those around them?

In Education general and specifically regarding writing, I think we sometimes erect ourselves on a teaching pedestal and remove ourselves from the students and their worlds. We gaze down upon them from our own pedagogical panopticon and we teach them endless strategies about improving their writing, and that if they don't improve their writing, they will suffer in life. We bring up things like resumes, college application essays, college essays, business letters and correspondence, writing in the workplace, and many other reasons as to why they should work harder at writing. Shamefully, I myself have been guilty of this more times than I'd like to count.

How often have we stopped to consider why words matter, and why words should matter to students - from their perspective, or even, more radically.....in their world?

None of this is to say that scholarship, organized writing process models, and pedagogy is insufficient to teach writing, and the sad fact is this: we'll never be able to reach everyone and convince them ALL that writing is important. However, I believe that pedagogy ALONE is insufficient. We are living in a vastly different and rapidly evolving, culturally diverse world with very few fixed points of reference and meaning. Things are constantly changing, evolving, and morphing into something new, different, and sometimes confusing. As teachers, and as teachers of writing, I wonder....and believe....if the one of the most important things we can do is to take a deep breathe, hold our collective noses, and dive deep into our students' world.

Can we risk exposing ourselves as humans, to discover our students as humans? Can we somehow make writing a flesh and blood, emotional, heart-pumping experience rather than solely a dry, witless academic routine that no average fifteen year old - and often the average college freshman - really cares about?

Can we get the jock quarterback to write a few lines of poetry, so he'll not only be surprised about what he puts down, but also surprised about how maybe writing doesn't "suck all that bad"?

Can we encourage students to vent in journals, get them used to writing off the top of their heads, and slowly try to use that refine their writing process?

Admittedly, these are ideals, and every situation is different, as is every teacher's personality. However, in the process of writing, I'm often haunted by the thought that if I'm not careful, I could fall into the trap of teaching all the trappings of writing, without delving into my students themselves, and trying to touch them as human beings - and why as human beings, writing can be a life changing experience, for all the best - and very possibly - non-academic reasons.