Teachers Write 1

I came across a blog posting about a virtual writing summer camp for teachers. It's called Teachers Write.  My interest was piqued, but so was my fear of failure.  I wanted to give it a shot.  But two things were holding me back: my perpetual inability to dedicate time to doing the writing I want to do, and my fear that everything I write sucks. (Looking at that sentence now, clearly one of those things in the parent of the other.)

I have recently made a very good friend whose daily braveries inspired me to sign up for Teachers Write, despite my own dearth of bravery in the writing arena.

She also inspired me to take the extra step of posting some of the writing I do here.  Because if my aim is to be brave, I have to take some chances.

The first task was a short introductory post with some background and goals for the program, and something we have noticed about our students as writers.
Another first week task was to make a list of things I wonder about.

Here are excerpted pieces of both of those.

I'm Kathleen Mueller and I just wrapped up my 28th year as a high school English teacher. Currently I teacher juniors and seniors and I love every minute of it, mostly because I learn so much every day. 

I write, as Joan Didion said, "to find out what I am thinking." It's part of how I make sense of the world. 

My goals for the week and for the summer are simple, and mildly terrifying: To write something every day, and to be brave about it. The thing that scares and excites me about any writing is the possibility of vulnerability that it opens up. Even in a literary analysis essay you pour out a little bit of your soul in the ink.

 One thing I have noticed about my students is that in a supportive community of fellow writers, they are more brave in their writing than I ever was as a student.

I wonder:

• I wonder how much of a difference I make
• I wonder what my mother was thinking that day I lifter out of her chair and into the bed she never would get out of.  
• I wonder why I am so fearful sometimes.
• I wonder why sometimes we don’t do our best
• I wonder about goldfinches in the winter
• I wonder what happens to people’s energy when they pass
• I wonder how birds can be so precise in their flying - like how do they fly into a tree and land on a specific branch, or a clothes line?
• I wonder what I would be if I weren’t a teacher
• I wonder how it can be that there is such a huge gap between perception and truth
• I wonder how you get to be brave
• I wonder why people thought it was a good idea to model schools after factories
• I wonder how effective Bronson Acott’s maxims would be as a teaching manifesto today
• I wonder why self-acceptance is so elusive
• I wonder what one thing I do has the biggest impact on students
• I wonder what I am missing
• I wonder how stars work
• I wonder where love comes from
• I wonder about the moon
• I wonder about the invention of hugging
• I wonder how people made up constellations
• I wonder how it is possible for people to be so different, even though we are all made of the same things
• I wonder what it feels like to drown
• I wonder how, with so many people, we find the right ones.  The ones who help us be our best selves.