D(W)riv(t)er's Ed.

"Miss Davis? What can you do with an English degree other than teach?"

Fair question. Sort of.

I told them you can do a lot of things by studying English. You can write. You can edit. You can teach. You can study what other people write. You can critique. You can continue learning forever. I think the real question they were asking, though, was, "Why do we need to learn English." They've certainly asked that before. I told them that every job they will ever have or could ever imagine having will require them to be able to communicate effectively, to write properly, to read carefully. That is why they have to learn English.

I think my students like me. And I know it's not necessarily about whether or not they like me. I know that. But I think they do, and I prefer that they do. I do know, however, that most of them do not like English, do not like learning about English. And regardless of whether or not it should bother me, it does.

I want them to understand, at the very least, why learning how to speak, write and read well is important, why it matters. I want them to value their growing ability to express themselves intelligently. I want them to enjoy learning the way I've come to love learning. Often, though, it's hard for me to make that connection.

I know I often fall into this habit of making my teaching about me, about what I'm experiencing, and that's a little self-righteous. But I know it's not, its just that that's the only perspective I have.

My students are bright. My students are witty. My students can think for themselves. They cannot, however, bring themselves to care about past participles, indenting paragraphs, poetry. I don't know if I blame them. I mean, indentation is pretty thrilling, really... but all the same... they've GOT to learn how to indent. Can I make indentation fun? Can I wow them with past participles? Can I get them on fire for reading Onion John? I don't know. I try.

When you decide you want to teach. It's all rainbows. It's all butterflies, until you realize that rainbows are optical illusions and you're terrified of butterflies. Haha... no... that's a little bit of exaggeration, not quite hyperbole, though. It's wonderful. It's wonderful in a way that it challenges you every single day to try harder. You can always try harder, and, I guess, you have to in order to live up to any of your own ideals. You might be reading this, thinking what a hypocrite I am teaching English. I use and abuse language with reckless abandon. But I've always been under the assumption that once you know language you have some type of license to mess with it a little, to start your sentences with conjunctions, to write fragments, to use a few too many ellipses. I want my students to earn their language licenses.