Notes from a Writing Teacher: One Final Lesson
By Jamey Temple
It’s the time of year when students send me letters. They thank me for their growth, for finding their voice. By the time I get these letters, I know these creative writing students like friends. I have read their stories about firsts and lasts, figuring out the in-between, the surprise of finding a turtle in a Walmart parking lot. Most of these letters are their goodbyes, the end of a road where I stop and watch them until I can’t see them anymore, until all I see is the blue sky, an endless forever.
***
I never wanted to be a teacher. In the third grade, Mrs. Gant assigned me a job to assist a fellow student who had fits of anger that frightened classmates. With my help, she’d calm down and complete her tasks. I remember helping her tie her shoes after one episode and her breaths slowing. That’s when I first heard it: you’ll make an excellent teacher someday .
Though I loved school and most of my teachers, I never shared this vision. I liked to spend my free time lying in the bed of my dad’s red Ford, staring at the clouds, the rolling hills, already falling for those shades of blue and green, the shapes of treetops and clouds. I’d imagine who I’d be as an adult. Could I sing like Karen Carpenter, a shy girl in the spotlight? Could my inner magic finally be seen?
***
During the last week of classes, I reserve time for revision, or what we call shaping. Still, one topic is my last gift to them: a reminder to never lose themselves. Their lives are clay, too. Some of these students will graduate and get married a few weeks later. Others will begin internships, complete graduate school applications, or start the job hunt, already dropped in the fully adult world.
It’s easy to fall into the routine of life. We must eat and have a place to rest, after all, I begin, but that doesn’t mean to forget that inner you, the inner child who knows when you are happiest, knows if that means rolling up your pant legs and walking through rock-lined creek beds, the sunlight piercing through the overhead leaves causing you to squint. Knows if you feel most rooted when you keep still to notice what’s around you and write down what you observe.
Don’t lose yourself.
***
I began writing poems in the third grade. One I remember, “Meadows Green,” begins, “I run through the meadows green/what a sight I’ve seen…”. I don’t remember the inspiration for the poem, but I remember falling in love with inversion, with the unexpectedness of adjectives following nouns. In my fourth-grade year, I wrote so many poems that Mrs. White taught me how to bind them with yarn. Later in middle school art, Mr. Bailey introduced me to ink and charcoal, stippling and shading. I was happiest working with my hands, creating.
In college, I took whatever classes I found interesting, like drawing, creative writing, advertising, while also working toward a degree in Communication Arts. I had no idea what I’d do with such a degree. Perhaps I’d work in journalism or PR. When I graduated, I took a job as a college admissions counselor, where I revamped a newsletter. The mailer was successful, so I was moved to PR where I created ad copy, designed ads and billboards, and wrote commercial scripts and profiles. I also trained student workers on how to write press releases. My supervisor said, “Have you ever thought about teaching?”
This question came up again as I was earning an MFA in creative writing. During my first residency, a fellow student asked, “So, you want to teach, too?”
I only wanted to be a better writer.
***
We sometimes put professions on children in an attempt for them to better their lives, to do better than we managed for ourselves. We see them as potential saviors for themselves and the world. In Maggie Smith’s famous poem “Good Bones,” she compares the world to a rundown house. You can make this place beautiful, she says.
I’m mindful of the advice I give to my students. I don’t glamorize my job or the writer’s life. I tell them about graduate school friends who barely make ends meet as adjuncts, teaching at three different schools. I tell them about my publication rejections and the little pay, especially in poetry. I tell them I am lucky to be their mentor when I never saw myself as one. I share about the years after earning an MFA when I didn’t write. How becoming a mother took all my energy, which was good and necessary. Strong female leaders like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Oprah Winfrey have been quoted as saying, “You can have it all, but not all at once,” which I impart as truth, having experienced it for myself.
For most of our young lives, we are asked about our goals and what’s next, but those questions cease when we’ve chosen a path, as if it’s an end to dreaming and the inner child. I tell them there are seasons in life: Don’t forget to look ahead. We talk about how to make a life where they can support their passions. For me, I became a teacher because I needed a job with more flexibility due to my having a family, but I also wanted to keep studying my craft. Where else could I better do that than in a classroom?
Maybe all those years ago, my teacher saw something in me that I couldn’t see for myself—patience when things are hard, kindness when it’s easier to turn away. Maybe what I teach is more about how to be in the world and how to see.
Maybe my students are my reminder to keep dreaming, too, and the classroom, a sacred place where we’re all seen, a place we’ve made beautiful. ____
Jamey Temple is a writer and professor who teaches English at University of the Cumberlands in Eastern Kentucky, where she has received the Excellence in Teaching award. Her poetry and prose have been included in several publications such as Fourth Genre , River Teeth , Rattle , and Appalachian Review . She has been named a finalist for Fourth Genre’s Multimedia Essay Prize and Wavelengths Chapbook Contest. You can read more of her published work through her website ( jameytemple.com ).
