#312: Sincere Teachings and Student Minds

I had a teacher whose words felt cutting, and sometimes hurtful. After a few days in his acting class, I realized he could say them without challenge because they were honest and true. Weeks passed, and my fellow students and I had a better grasp on what he was working to teach us. The feedback stayed the same, but felt less personal and more objective; we could all tell when the actors in a scene stopped being “real”. By the end of the semester, the man who appeared to be a grizzly at the beginning was really a teddy bear. I’ll always remember him.

I love reading about Amanda’s experience here, and how her teacher opened her mind with her direct and honest feedback.

- Corey

Sincere Teachings and Student Minds

During my sophomore year of college, I took a creative writing course that helped me grow on various levels. Throughout my schooling, I had always felt confident in the subject area of writing, but the professor I had shattered that confidence the first month of the semester... in a great and perhaps necessary way.  

I remember the feeling in my stomach when she dropped the first graded piece on my desk. I flipped it over only to see all these negative remarks in thick red pen, scribbled in the margins as well as right on the words themselves. She had crossed out full sentences and replaced them with one word, "Cliche." It had hit a nerve to read these blunt critiques. And after looking through them, every class I sat through afterwards had me feeling very intimidated by her. 

But looking back, I realized what I may have been intimidated by was her sheer passion. She showed up each week wholeheartedly wanting to expand our creative brains and help each of us grow as writers, which I quickly learned is a skill that requires constant refinement, being ever open and willing to improve. And for that notion to get through to us it meant she would be fiercely yet positively direct, inspiring us to stay humble and ready for change. 

Throughout those first few weeks, she gave me incredibly insightful feedback on my work, and helped me see what I myself and other former English teachers perhaps hadn't in the past. "Use a richer conversational voice with this character." or "Take out these unnecessary words - too verbose." It certainly challenged my thinking and my ways. I know her very specific written comments and evaluations of my work helped me as a writer in the long run.  But I will never forget the verbal response she had to me one day that also shifted my thinking.  

I had raised my hand to answer a question she posed about a short story we had all just read. Her question was, "And why do you think it was powerful that Sarah (character in book) did what she did?" I responded with, "Because I can totally relate to Sarah in the difficult loss she was facing in her life at the time. I had something similar happen to me and I thought she handled the situation well. I feel for her." 

Without hesitation, my professor shot something straight back at me that caused me to refrain from raising my hand the rest of class. "Amanda - just because you can relate to someone or something, does not add to or determine its value. Being able to simply relate does not make something more or less powerful or relevant."  

At first, I felt a defensiveness stir up due to the total rejection of what I had contributed. But once I put my ego aside on my walk home from campus, I thought deeply about her comment. I recognized that it doesn't matter whether I can or can't relate to another human being or a certain situation or work of art or piece of writing.  

In fact, I've found it's a beautiful thing to come across someone with entirely different energy or on a different frequency, or who thinks in a completely new way. Gauging a situation based on if I relate to it or not limits the chances I get to grow as a thoughtful person who leads with compassion and embraces people who have different backgrounds and outlooks on life than I do. For example, when I'm in a conversation and start to hear opinions that my current mindset wants to close the door on, I let my professor's words be the key that reopens it and I proceed ahead with listening ears. 

To this day, I gravitate towards situations and people that are different from me, to stories I can't identify with. And I've found that it is an exciting and meaningful way to live and keeps my heart and mind wide open - for new learnings and bonds to form. And not to risk sounding cliche or anything here but, by the end of that college semester, I had a better grasp on who I was and strived to be not only as a writer but as a human being too.