My favorite teachers were always my English teachers.
When I say "English Teacher," I am including a fairly broad category of teacher, given the specificity one finds in college, versus the necessarily broad sweeping teaching that happens in high school.
English teacher, in this context, covers English, Literature, Writing, and a hint of Theatre. But only a hint.
I'm a homeschool student, but not in the usual way. That is to say, I didn't start homeschooled. I was in public school right up until my sophomore year in high school, but owing to my difficulties at the time, my mother made the executive decision to pull me out. That was the right decision, for her part.
A cliched aside: I've come to understand it's a trope in blogging circles to give a reason as to why one has decided to blog. In my case, it's actually prosaic. I write in a few mediums, notably for screen and stage, as well as prose.
Stage and screen writing are very different beasts, but such are their mechanical and functional similarities that I can generally weave between the two with little effort.
Prose is its own task, and if I've spent too much time in the land of dialogue, I find that I have the worst time easing myself back into the state of mind for prose. This means I have to write something resembling prose every day, to keep that muscle toned.
Journaling occurred to me, but I'm not going to put forth the effort of having a journal. A blog, which is the modern version of journaling, save for the part where you let strangers read it, seemed the obvious solution.
Perhaps it's closer to letter writing. Letter writing is a beautiful art unto itself. A shame I'm lazy.
Back to the purpose of this particular post.
I hated high school. That was obvious. My various English teachers were my salvation, however, as it was the one subject, unsurprisingly, that I felt completely comfortable in. I was interested in it, so I actually bothered with the work.
It wasn't that I didn't understand other subjects. I just hated homework. I hated being told as a child that I had to go to a 9-5 job that I wasn't going to get paid for. To learn subjects that I wasn't terribly interested in, or would use. (I was right about that for the most part. Oddly, the subject that people use as their scapegoat "I'll-never-use-this" subject is Algebra, and I do use Algebra on a weirdly frequent basis.)
I'm sure my former teachers would all hope that I would have come to some sort of understanding with my past self. I'm afraid I must let them all down. I'm still pretty resentful of the entire school experience. Especially given discoveries of myself in the last couple of years.
I'm not fond of institutional certainty when decades after the fact they then tell me, "Oh. No, we didn't have all the information at the time."
Then what justified that certainty?
Imagine a long sigh from me right now.
College was a different story. Mostly. Well, no. Not mostly.
I liked college. I failed out of college horribly. That's on me and chasing a girl. I can't be totally upset. I made those choices. She wasn't a good person. But I still chased. Like an idiot. Tell me if you've that one before.
However, I still cherish those college memories, for what it's worth. And for all the fun I had in my theatre classes, it wasn't my theatre classes that were my favorite.
No, that would have been my Freshman Composition class. I know. You're shocked.
That class also had one of my favorite professors. A person whose name I won't share given a lack of permission (she doesn't know I'm writing this and I didn't ask.) Nevertheless, she's still a wonderful individual, still writing, and still someone I will chat with when the happy occasion arises.
I remember my first day in class. She immediately referenced Jane Schaffer and a sort of depression immediately fell over me.
I should note: I loved English classes in high school, but I hated writing essays in them. There was a massive disconnect for me.
For those of you don't remember or don't know, Jane Schaffer essays look like this:
Topic Paragraph, where the first sentence is your thesis, each sentence an argument, with the final sentence being your closing statement.
Second paragraph will correspond with first argument sentence in Topic Paragraph.
Third will correspond with next sentence.
Fourth will correspond with next.
Final paragraph will elaborate on closing statement.
Disgusting.
I read essays in junior high and high school. I knew what they looked like written by professionals.
They were amazing. Detailed, funny, free flowing and works of art. They didn't follow that crap. What was that crap? Why?
I hated it. I wanted to write like the professionals. Some of these essays became full books. I know this because I was a student who liked the library. I've seen the nonfiction section. Those are essays. Massive essays, but essays nevertheless.
My professor, God bless her, said, in a moment I will never forget, "You will not be writing in that style in this class."
Have you ever a moment of such exultation that you thought you might fly? That was me in that moment. First day in the class, and all the crap I knew to be bad was being thrown out. And more than that, our first assignment was to write, free style, with no form or forced structure.
Just writing.
I was astonished. I was stunned. I was excited.
A confession.
I didn't like every single English class I was in. My junior high pre-AP English class was moronic.
Mean? I don't care.
There were essays, but written in the aforementioned structural drivel that I hated so much. There was reading a lot of classic literature, and that was great. I do love literature. As someone who reads Shakespeare for pleasure, I enjoyed that element.
However, in this supposedly advanced class, I was rather disappointed in having to make a diorama about To Kill A Mockingbird.
Language warning:
3
2
1
What the fuck does that have to do with writing?
Are you kidding me?
What does it have to do with critical analysis? With understand literature?
Should we get the finger paints next? What about those letter blocks? It's my turn with the Legos next. Teacher, is it nap time?
I'm still resentful.
Obviously.
Freshman Comp. What a godsend. As was the professor.
I remember the essay I used for the final. It was about my distaste for Jerry Falwell and his comments about 9/11 and how God let it happen because of people he didn't approve of.
It was an angry essay.
I wouldn't write it today.
Not because I've changed my mind.
But because I'm a different person. I'd be nicer towards Falwell, honestly.
Yes, you read that write. And yes, your brain probably had a little cognitive malfunction. I said two diametrically opposed things, right?
I maintain the same opinion as I had then. Yet, I'm understanding?
Humans are humans. They are fallible. We are, whether we like it or not, married to our biology and our evolution.
In college, I believed in free will. Today, I'm not certain.
I didn't like my 9th grade English teacher, breaking a long tradition of loving English teachers. Now, I get it.
She had a checklist of certainties when it came to teaching children. She knew them to be true.
I don't know if she's still alive today, I certainly hope she's in good health if she is, but I highly doubt she would teach the same way now.
I was a firebrand in Freshman Comp. Woe be to the conservative who admitted it in front of me. Now, I have many conservative friends. I don't agree with them. But I love them all the same.
I have many liberal friends. I love them too.
Even now, in this era of division, I hold dearly on to people because people are people. When a movement starts to justify hate towards anyone, even the worst of us, you would do well to raise an eyebrow at said movement. That slippery slope is inches to either side. It takes only a little leaning to fall down it.
Like I said before, this blog is for keeping my prose muscle toned.
This wasn't an essay. Again, the point was keeping the muscle going.
I loved my Freshmen Comp class. If you read this, hoping I'd stick the landing, I must apologize.
I was never going to end this with a clever culmination of real life events to relate back to the initial concept.
Rather, I clumsily crossed what felt like the finish line because I do, after all, have a novel to write.
