Writing and comeing home

I have not written in a long time. I could come up with reasons excuses, but that is rather pathetic.

I am still here, I still read constantly and some times leave notes, but I have not written. I have some starts, all saved as private, because I could not bring myself to finish writing out that thoughts that started.

But today is different. Today is the memorial service for a professor that I had in college, specifically in my MAT program. Wilkins-O’Riley Zinn .

I can remember her classes alone from that time in my life with any fondness and hope. Where everything seemed overwhelming, her classes and her manner made everything seem possible. In her class we were allowed to be ourselves, to be honest and true.

I can still remember on the first day of her class on classroom management someone in my cohort, an older gentlemen returning to school to be a teacher (a man who I do respect and who became one of my few friends in that program), just put his feelings out there when she asked us to tell about ourselves and specifically what we was passionate about. He was tired of all the ‘touchy feely’ aspects of classes and just wanted to get to business and what did “any of this have to do with classroom management?”

And Zinn looked at him and ever so kindly start explaining that teaching is about love. She told him that if we cannot be in touch with who we are as people, that if we leave our understanding and compassion at the door, that if we leave WHO we are at the door and do not allow for ourselves to be true to our own hearts, we would being an injustice to our students. She explained that if we are honest with ourselves, and thus honest with our students, we would understand that “classroom management” was not about making students behave, but about helping them to want to learn in a safe environment. – There are so many reasons I remember this almost ten years later.

As she said this, she starting crying. I can remember the look on her face, and I knew she was speaking from her heart. That she was a person who was a teacher because she loved children, because she wanted to help them find their way in life – and that she was now teaching in college to help others find the way to do the same.

In less than 10 minutes of class, I knew who I wanted to be as a teacher. I wanted to be like Zinn. I wanted to be able to still be myself instead of what others thought I should be as a teacher. I wanted to be able to build that honesty and trust with students that she had with us without even knowing who we were. Hell, I even wanted to be able to cry in front of my students and let them know it was okay to feel. Mostly, I wanted to be free to show my own passions and love of everything, and help students be able to do the same.

I remember her classes, in fact hers are the only ones I remember from my MAT program. And Zinn is the only education professor that I remember who actually taught me about what it means to be a real teacher.

Now, why does this make me want to write? Two weeks ago this wonderful woman passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. And literally hundreds of people are heartbroken. She touched so many lives when she was a high school teacher, and again as a college professor – more still as an artist and writer, and ever so many more as a friend. She impacted hundreds of young teachers, who have gone on the careers all over the world – who I hope are using lessons learned from her to impact there own students.

So many ripples from one starting point.

Today a friend of mine, a fellow teacher also greatly impacted by Zinn, posted a link on Facebook to one of Zinn’s many blogs: Zinnful . The last entry was written over a year ago, but today it makes me think and reminds me of something she told one of our classes once. I am not even sure which class it was because I signed up for as many classes from her as I could take in the MAT program.

She told my class (and she put it at the top of one of her many awesome handouts) “Read every day to learn about others, write every day to learn about yourself.”

In her blog entry about the importance of writing every day, about just getting the ideas out there before they are lost. There will be treasures, and there will be fodder – but that is the point is it not? To create, to put something of yourself out there, to find the little treasures to take and develop.

I want to write again. No more excuses. No promises about it being any good or important, or hell if any one will read it since I disappeared off the face of the planet here for quite a while. Not sure if I can write every day, but I would like to. Part of it is I need to stop criticizing myself, stop trying to make it powerful or important – I just need to start writing again.