{"id":1981,"date":"2011-10-25T16:04:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T20:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2011-10-25T16:04:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T20:04:50","slug":"what-i-learned-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/10\/what-i-learned-today.html","title":{"rendered":"what I learned today ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For my students, writing a personal narrative — even armoured w\/ attendant scholarship — is walking on verrrry thin ice. Their toes curl up, I suspect. They go oh-so-slooowly, each word a careful footstep forward. Each sentence almost too much personal revelation. For them, writing resembles strip poker w\/ strangers.<\/p>\n

They write of mean. Mean parents, mean ‘friends,’ mean teachers, a mean world banging at their battered hearts. It cracks my own to read their quietly desperate drafts. One is the child of a meth addict, now parenting her own mother. Another is the survivor of three suicide attempts — brought on by drugs and alcohol and the pressures of competition. Two are anorexic. Another has a disease that has put 100 pounds on her frame, earning her the rejection of her peers. For every one of my 17 students, there is a story. And almost none of them are happy.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What I learned from reading these narratives — what I learned from class today — is that my students are brave. I ask them to write, to examine their lives, and they offer up these bruises and breaks and scars. They hold back nothing. I have told them in so many words that I love them, and for some reason I have yet to understand they trust me.<\/p>\n

What I learned today is that teaching is a sacred trust — theirs of me, mine of them. I trust that they will understand when I tell them that writing is about more than the story, so they must revise. Not their lives — although I wish 17 times during the hour that I could edit out pain and sorrow and negative self-image and grief. They must revise the writing down of these lives. This is where inspiration is non-existent, and work is all that matters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What I learned today is that teaching remains the hardest thing I do daily. And one of the most rewarding. Try it — in whatever job you do. It will grow your beginner’s heart. Trust me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my students, writing a personal narrative — even armoured w\/ attendant scholarship — is walking on verrrry thin ice. Their toes curl up, I suspect. They go oh-so-slooowly, each word a careful footstep forward. Each sentence almost too much personal revelation. For them, writing resembles strip poker w\/ strangers. They write of mean. Mean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15,43,58],"tags":[11,1181,1187],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-compassion","category-teaching","category-writing","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism"],"yoast_head":"\nwhat I learned today ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For my students, writing a personal narrative -- even armoured w\/ attendant scholarship -- is walking on verrrry thin ice. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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