Teaching and Learning

I teach a lot. Every weekday (for the past five years) I teach a class full of teenagers in seminary. And two days a week I teach flutes lessons to nine teenage girls. A few times a month I teach at some of the local schools flute clinics to-- yes-- teenagers. And before I taught seminary I served seven years in our church's Stake youth program. And before that... wait, I'm giving away my age. Let's just say I've spent a lot of time teaching teenagers and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

I had a love/hate relationship with my own teenage experience and I want to make those years as painless as possbile for the teenagers I teach. I tend to share experiences from my own life but they end up sounding to much "back when I was a teenager"-ish. So I go to my second most rated teenage experience... that of my own teenage children. So far I've suffered through/enjoyed the lives of three teenagers and have one more on the brink at age twelve. I try to protect the innocent and keep things as anonymous as possible. "One of my kids, who shall remain nameless, had a problem with tempo. They would either play something fast or extremely slow..." Occasionally I drop a "he" or "she" and narrow down the choices, kind of like 50-50 on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". Sometimes it was blatently obvious: "When one of my kids came home from her first semester at college, she attended a party with her old high school friends. She learned how very different life was for her..."(I only had one in college when I shared that one!)

I've never shared anything secret or broken a promised confidence... just the experiences of a "could be anybody" teenager. Many times they or one of their siblings is sitting in the class when I share their lives. If it is something I know would embarrass them I just say it is just a youth that I knew in our stake. Teenagers have so much learning and growing to do, and these kids I teach need to know that they aren't the only ones going through these rough experiences. Others have been through tough times and made it through alive, with their testimonies intact. (A short note to my kids: please don't be mad at me. I really do keep private things private and if you want to know what I've been saying about you I'll tell you.)

All of this brings me to a point. Really. You see, I have this kid, who shall remain nameless, who thinks they can't write. (It totally could be any of kids saying this!) All but one, (who didn't like to take the time to physically put pen to paper and form letters... it's just so time consuming), in my family can write well. But this particular child thinks he/she (not gonna catch me there!) really cannnot write well at all. This child of mine has been writing since before they knew what a letter of the alphabet was. This child has won writing awards. This child has keep multiple journals. This child was probably the first of mine (I'm not sure about this) who started a blog. This child got A's on English papers. This child loves the written word. This child CAN write and touches my heart everytime I read his/her words.

I thought of this child when I ran across the following quote by E. L. Doctorow:
"Good writing is supposed to
evoke sensation in the reader--
not the fact that it is raining,
but the feeling of being rained upon."

This child of mine, who has remained nameless, has taught me, the teacher, a lesson. Maybe not a lesson per se, but more about who this child really is. I have learned so much about this child from his/her writing, the short, not very often updated, writing. I can feel what he/she feels. I too, think I'm an awful writer. My brother recently read my blog and commented to me (personally, not in the comments section) what a good writer I was. Me??? He said I wrote clearly and people could understand what I was trying to say. What a pick me up. I still don't think I'd ever make it as a writer, but if I can communicate what my brain is thinking and transfer it to the written word, then I guess I've done my job.

You, my shall remain nameless child, have the gift of evoking sensation when you write. I can feel what you write. You who shall always be more of a reader than a writer, can write.