Things My Students Don't Believe
There are some things that I tell my students, things that are one-hundred and sixty percent true, but that they definitely don't believe. It's hard - to believe in something that you haven't experienced for yourself; I remember harboring a lot of disbelief in my teen years, but I hope someday they do believe. I hope someday it happens, and they take a second, a breath, and think: "Ms. Schneider used to tell me it would feel like this." Because...I never tell them anything that I don't believe. A few of the more significant examples:
Reading makes you smarter.
I'm pretty sure they think this is just my version of "because I said so." When they ask me why it's important for them to read, not to study classic text or analyze or annotate, but just simply...to read, I tend to tell them "reading makes you smarter." Because...well, it does. Even if you don't understand, even if it's hard for you, often it does so especially then. I've never, not once in my life, read anything that hasn't taught me something. That doesn't mean that everything I've read has been enjoyable; I've cracked some detested spines, but I've never come away without something I didn't have before.
I'm way cooler now than I was at seventeen, and trust me: you will be too.
I don't think as teenagers we ever truly understand our lack of confidence. We mask it with false bravado or tune out the ideas we don't like or understand. I did. They do; I watch them do it. If the self I was at seventeen could have a conversation with the self I am now, she would likely spend a piece of time rolling her eyes. She was good at that. And I don't think she would believe me either, that life now, life without the things she knows, the things she thinks will last forever, is better than life then. But it is. She'll mumble out a finality-laced "okay" when I tell her to wait and see and then continue to think that her "forevers" will really last forever, and it won't get better than the friends and the love and the adventures of "right now." She's in for a surprise though because she was wrong. The magic was barely even there yet.
It's good for you.
This one comes in all different shapes and sizes. And it might be on the list of the ones that they hate most, but I've never said it and not believed it was true. I would never do anything that I didn't think was good for them. Practicing their vocabulary words over and over and over makes them think about the words they use even when they don't realize it does. Reading Shakespeare gives them tools to decipher, makes their eyes work harder to send messages to their brains, developing skills that they'll use later without even noticing it. "I promise, even when the benefit isn't clear, I will never do anything that isn't good for you."
That's not a defense; that's just a description of what happened.
For the record, my kids might hate this one the most. However, sometimes they tend to not see the difference. "I was JUST asking him a QUESTION!" Right. I know. I have functioning ears; I heard. I didn't tell you "no" because I wasn't sure what was happening. I told you "no" because you're interrupting my lesson. You aren't defending yourself. You're describing the issue. A better statement would be: "I didn't think I was being loud enough to be distracting." That tells me exactly why you would make that choice. I may not agree with your defense, but at least give it a shot.
This book changed my life.
I think this is the one that is met with the most disbelieving scoffs, and sometimes that makes me very sad because it's often difficult to explain what exactly I mean - but it's true. Not every book will do it, not even every book you like will do it, but sometimes, if you let them, the words on the page will make you...different somehow - and usually better too. I think I was thirteen the first time it happened. I read a book, and when I finished, all of a sudden I had this urge to put pencil to a blank sheet of notebook paper and not look up. I wanted to write. I wanted to create something. And then I did.
Once, in high school, I met a character that wouldn't leave my brain. It didn't matter what I did, school work, sports practice, driving in the car with the music up, the story was there. It was the first time that I fell in love with something that couldn't truly love me back, and it changed the way that I considered all sorts of things. I'd never thought of love as more than a mutually beneficial relationship before. And after that...it felt like magic.
In college I read a story with an ending that rocked me to my very core, so I went back, and I read it again. And I learned that nothing happens in storytelling that does not have purpose. I live like that now. I read like that; I watch films and television like that - looking for the purpose in the dialogue, the description of a less-than secondary character, the camera angle. It gave me this never-faltering drive to ask "WHY?"
Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes they don't last forever, and sometimes you step out of that world of fiction and you know that something about you is never going to be the same. I hope that someday the students who don't believe me will feel that. It's a gift, truly.
You know, now that I take a minute to think about all of this, to write it all down...."(Someone Important) used to tell me it would feel like this."
Reading makes you smarter.
I'm pretty sure they think this is just my version of "because I said so." When they ask me why it's important for them to read, not to study classic text or analyze or annotate, but just simply...to read, I tend to tell them "reading makes you smarter." Because...well, it does. Even if you don't understand, even if it's hard for you, often it does so especially then. I've never, not once in my life, read anything that hasn't taught me something. That doesn't mean that everything I've read has been enjoyable; I've cracked some detested spines, but I've never come away without something I didn't have before.
I'm way cooler now than I was at seventeen, and trust me: you will be too.
I don't think as teenagers we ever truly understand our lack of confidence. We mask it with false bravado or tune out the ideas we don't like or understand. I did. They do; I watch them do it. If the self I was at seventeen could have a conversation with the self I am now, she would likely spend a piece of time rolling her eyes. She was good at that. And I don't think she would believe me either, that life now, life without the things she knows, the things she thinks will last forever, is better than life then. But it is. She'll mumble out a finality-laced "okay" when I tell her to wait and see and then continue to think that her "forevers" will really last forever, and it won't get better than the friends and the love and the adventures of "right now." She's in for a surprise though because she was wrong. The magic was barely even there yet.
It's good for you.
This one comes in all different shapes and sizes. And it might be on the list of the ones that they hate most, but I've never said it and not believed it was true. I would never do anything that I didn't think was good for them. Practicing their vocabulary words over and over and over makes them think about the words they use even when they don't realize it does. Reading Shakespeare gives them tools to decipher, makes their eyes work harder to send messages to their brains, developing skills that they'll use later without even noticing it. "I promise, even when the benefit isn't clear, I will never do anything that isn't good for you."
That's not a defense; that's just a description of what happened.
For the record, my kids might hate this one the most. However, sometimes they tend to not see the difference. "I was JUST asking him a QUESTION!" Right. I know. I have functioning ears; I heard. I didn't tell you "no" because I wasn't sure what was happening. I told you "no" because you're interrupting my lesson. You aren't defending yourself. You're describing the issue. A better statement would be: "I didn't think I was being loud enough to be distracting." That tells me exactly why you would make that choice. I may not agree with your defense, but at least give it a shot.
This book changed my life.
I think this is the one that is met with the most disbelieving scoffs, and sometimes that makes me very sad because it's often difficult to explain what exactly I mean - but it's true. Not every book will do it, not even every book you like will do it, but sometimes, if you let them, the words on the page will make you...different somehow - and usually better too. I think I was thirteen the first time it happened. I read a book, and when I finished, all of a sudden I had this urge to put pencil to a blank sheet of notebook paper and not look up. I wanted to write. I wanted to create something. And then I did.
Once, in high school, I met a character that wouldn't leave my brain. It didn't matter what I did, school work, sports practice, driving in the car with the music up, the story was there. It was the first time that I fell in love with something that couldn't truly love me back, and it changed the way that I considered all sorts of things. I'd never thought of love as more than a mutually beneficial relationship before. And after that...it felt like magic.
In college I read a story with an ending that rocked me to my very core, so I went back, and I read it again. And I learned that nothing happens in storytelling that does not have purpose. I live like that now. I read like that; I watch films and television like that - looking for the purpose in the dialogue, the description of a less-than secondary character, the camera angle. It gave me this never-faltering drive to ask "WHY?"
Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes they don't last forever, and sometimes you step out of that world of fiction and you know that something about you is never going to be the same. I hope that someday the students who don't believe me will feel that. It's a gift, truly.
You know, now that I take a minute to think about all of this, to write it all down...."(Someone Important) used to tell me it would feel like this."
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