I’ve been teaching writing in virtually of its forms for over a decade. My resume includes working with a diverse range of students at every post-elementary level, including college and including students with mild and severe learning disorders.
My primary teaching style is Socratic. I ask lots of questions and challenge lots of answers. But I try to do so in as affable a way as possible, hoping the conversation leads us to whatever wisdom is possible that day.
But the confrontational tone of my personality sometimes gets in the way.
I am the product of a male-dominated childhood where I learned to fight with words rather than fists and where fighting was often done for fun. I try to overcome the evolutionary forces that cause me to nip and bark, but after 41 years, I’m finding it’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.
It might be time for a new strategy, one where the my confrontational tone doesn’t harm the learning opportunities of my students.
I can be a good teacher. I’m definitely not for everyone, but I’ve helped some students, and perhaps even many, become better writers than they were.
But now, in the absence of my job at the soon-to-be-defunct Green Mountain College, I need a better way to find those many.
Should I Go Freelance?
I recently visited one of those online freelancer-marketplaces to research what it might cost to hire a voice actor to record an audio version of my novel, but while I was there, I considered the idea of going freelance for a moment, and I asked myself what I’d be willing to do.
A couple of days ago, one of my best friends asked me to mentor his college-age son with a creative writing project, and of course, I agreed. Because they live on the West Coast, the mentorship would have to take place online.
I asked for his son’s number, sent the son a text, and off we went.
But here’s the thing. Because it’s just texting, I can work with him while also doing basically anything else. When I get a few minutes and I have something to say or a question to ask, I pull out my phone, send him a text, and move on with my day.
I don’t expect him to get back to me immediately. He could be doing anything else in the world, so why should he stop and respond to me? When he’s available and interested, he can text me back and I’ll get back him when I can.
As I browsed some of the writing gigs on the freelance marketplace, I started to wonder if that might be something many people would like: text-based access to a highly-qualified writing teacher.
This isn’t an original idea. It’s basically freelancing as a writing coach.
But that’s not all I started wondering about.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
I teach at a school with students whose faces I know, but I often see those faces focused on their screens rather than on the people around them (including me), and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t also offer something like this at my school.
Imagine a school where teenagers come to pursue whatever projects they want. The projects don’t have to be related to anything or compared against anything or checked for excellence in any way, but during those projects (and after school hours), teachers text with the student, supporting them and challenging them in different ways, sometimes academically, sometimes emotionally, but always openly and honestly.
The teachers at this school spend part of their day working one-on-one with students, or offering group discussions or group collaborations, or working independently on their own projects, keeping an eye on student behavior while also engaging several of them through texts whenever the moment inspires or allows.
Such a school wouldn’t be much different than one I work in now, where most (if not all) of our teachers sometimes (and often) connect with students through texts.
But I’m wondering if we (or at least, I) could be more intentional about how we (I) use texts. Teachers know the importance of developing relationships with their students, but how many of us strategize the way we engage in the text-to-text aspects of that relationship, an aspect that might even be more important than the face-to-face one thanks to this generation’s connection to its devices?
Leave Me Alone, Kid (or) Go Fuck Yourself, Sir
Why would teachers not want to develop a text-based relationship with their students?
The obvious issue is privacy. Teachers deserve the opportunity to turn themselves off — not just go into sleep mode, but turn themselves off.
Giving students text-based access invites them to disturb their teacher’s most private hours, and every teacher has taught at least one student who was not yet skilled in the art of respecting privacy.
But the issue goes both ways.
Students don’t want to hear from their teachers when they’re busy with their friends or when they’re getting ready to Netflix & chill.
There are also rotten apples among us who would take advantage of their age and authority to manipulate students into doing something they may not want to do (or realize they shouldn’t do).
Still, even with those caveats, there’s definitely something here to think about; something that may be worth getting right.