I’ll share this bit of the story–more to come.
My Rock/Soul/Progressive class just finished James Miller’s Flowers in the Dustbin. At our last meeting, I decided we’d use what Miller says about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as a test case for a)Â evaluating the idealism and folly of the Sixties, b)Â evaluating Miller’s take on the Sgt. Pepper’s phenomenon (and by extension, the Sixties as well), and c) thinking about whether the current generation my class represents has anything in its experience of popular music to correspond with the Sgt. Pepper’s phenomenon.
My students argued intensely that Miller was disillusioned, bitter, dismissive. Better to dream than not to dream. Better to have a beautiful illusion than a paltry reality.
I pushed back. It was hard to do since I agree with them, but I felt I had to. They were answering too quickly.
They pushed back, harder.
We went back and forth. It hurt me to push the pain and cynicism of decades of post-Sixties withdrawal on them, but they needed to know what they’d have to invest to maintain their positions. I was as kind as I could be even as I bore down. They were kind too as they responded with passion and, at times, real soulfulness.
Finally I said to them, “If you think Miller’s all wrong, if you think he’s a bitter man, if you think he’s giving up on that dream too easily, write him. He’s a professor at the New School. Find his email address and write him. Be courteous, don’t be confrontational or mean, but tell him what you think and invite his response.”
They were silent.
Then one student said, “You know, there was an assignment in my high school that asked us all to write to someone who’d inspired us. One guy wrote to John Lennon–well, John Lennon was dead of course, so he wrote to Yoko Ono about how John Lennon had inspired him. And you know what? She wrote him back!”
I spread my arms wide: “I rest my case.”
“Well,” she went on, “he was a really smart guy, our valedictorian, a really great writer. He wrote three beautiful pages in that letter.”
I said, “If you’re worried your own writing isn’t up to that level, why don’t you all write a letter together?”
A young woman on the other side of the table looked up and said, “I’d like that. It sounds like fun.”
I said, “Great. Now, who’ll organize it for you?”
“You will!” they responded.
“No I won’t,” I said. “Do you know why?”
“You don’t want to be associated with student writing?”
“You don’t think we’ll do it right?”
“You don’t want to make Miller angry?”
“No, no, and no. Doesn’t anyone know why I won’t organize your project?”
Silence.
“Because this project needs to be yours, not mine. Organize it yourselves. When you’re done, if it’s ready to go, I’ll be happy to put my name on the document. But this needs to be your project. Get together, talk it over, set it up. I can help if you need it.”
Class was over. Folks headed for the door. One student said, “I’m going to take you up on that.”
Three hours later, I saw that she had. She cc’d me on her email to James Miller. Her email was heartbreakingly beautiful.
Later that evening, I got an email from her telling me that she and Miller had been emailing back and forth.
Today, in another class she’s taking with me. I asked her if I could see the exchange when she was ready. She said she’d share it with me. A student from last year’s freshman seminar, also in this other class, asked what had happened. I explained it to her, and she was round-eyed with wonder.
Amazing.
Very, very sick!
Definitely link to that when the time comes. I’d be really interested in seeing it.
Thats just freaking amazing and awesome. There is some magic happening here.
Real school.
I had to read this to David. Wow. Yes, magic. Must be the prof:) Thanks for sharing…
Damn,
Where were you when I was an undergrad?
Damn luck students at UMW,
applauding!
It was an extraordinary moment, no doubt about it. That said, this teaching thing is still a bitter-with-the-sweet experience: only two or three in the class had done the reading for yesterday. And the assignment was the beginning of Nik Cohn’s “Awopbopaloobop”! How could one not devour *that*?
Oh well. The rest of the Miller story will appear by and by on the student’s blog: “A Quip and a Cigarette.” She shared her emails with the class yesterday, and that part of the class was great, at least….
Makes the bitter easier to take when you get a few wins like this one. Sweet.
This is an inspiring story for so many reasons, but here’s what really resonates with me (and resonates to the point of hurting — in a good way):
The fact that this student has learned (and hopefully her fellow-students, by example) that there are moments in life when we simply have to close our eyes and jump, do the thing that seems unthinkable, trust our instincts is truly wonderful. It’s a wisdom that usually doesn’t come until much later in life — it’s certainly a wisdom that I’m still seeking.
To reach out that way to someone who seems so distant and unreachable, and to have it result in a human connection that quickly must be an incredibly profound experience.
How many of us sit our desks and daydream about what *could* be but what we think *can’t* be, but only for the limitations of our own imaginations and hearts? Shedding those shackles of fear, doubt, inhibition can exact an extraordinary mental and emotional toll — but the rewards that can appear on the other side are simply immeasurable.
I would bet that most of your students in that class have never imagined that they could connect in such an intimate way with the ideas and people whom they’re studying. It seems to me that we don’t teach students that school can be about that kind of connection — that kind of agency and empowerment. And then we wonder why they seem disconnected from their studies, why they approach their work with a sense of distance and other-ness.
A lucky student to have such a professor. A lucky professor to have such a student. And lucky us for being able to follow along, and hopefully learn by example too.
I really read for real, really!
And it’s really good, so you won’t have this whole reading problem with me
@Magan I know you were an exception–forgive me for feeling a little deflated when I tried to go to the next part of the class. But my idealism is uncrushable and I will look forward to great engagement from all next time.
And I can’t wait for you to tell your story on “A Quip and a Cigarette.” (Oops, blew your cover–an accident, I assure you, cough.)