learning from my mistakes

At one point yesterday, an hour into the second session of what was supposed to be three 90-minute writing workshops with middle school kids in auditorium-seating chairs, I looked at the 250 eighth graders sitting in long, deep rows in metal folding chairs in the school's library, without their notebooks, staring at me, challenging me (in the best way) to entertain them on this exciting day of all-day-long Countdown projects, and thought, I give up.

I know you've been there as a teacher, a parent, a writer, a maker-of-things, a long-distance traveler of any sort on the convoluted highway of your work- or home-life.

I saw 750 kids yesterday in three 90-minute sessions. After talking with their principal long weeks ago about how to best make use of an author-visit day, I had prepared a personal narrative writing workshop for these students centered around their summer reading of Countdown, just one of several culminating events in their "One Book, One School" project. 

Somehow wires got crossed, as they sometimes do, and I ended up punting all day long, expending every last drop of energy, presence, and voice I had, using every scrap of classroom management skills at my disposal, trying to figure out how to work with these kids and give them -- and their teachers -- something of value to take away from the day. 

I was trying too hard. I know you've been there, too. The room was too light; the projector bulb was not bright; the round walls of the library were mostly glass (and the screen was in front of that), so students en mass who were moved from station to station all day distracted us; dueling microphones squealed; kids bounced; I sometimes shouted to be heard (I know better) and the whole thing felt terribly disjointed.

When teachers asked "What happened to the writing workshops?" I took every vindicating opportunity to say, "We were supposed to be workshopping; I'd never have kept your kids for a 90-minute assembly." Which, with this many captured kids squeezed together, who have no other creative outlet for an hour and a half, is like, I promise, performing a 90-minute concert. Three times. In one day. Only I'm not Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. 

At lunchtime, when the principal asked how it was going and I replied fine, she said, "I was in there, near the end of your second session; it looked like you were having some trouble...". I replied, lickety- split, in my justified defense, "If they had had notebooks..." and thought further ...IF THEY HAD HAD NOTEBOOKS, LIKE WE AGREED THEY WOULD HAVE, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN WRITING, DOODLING, SCRIBBLING, DRAWING, WHILE FOLLOWING ME; THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY ENGAGED; I KNOW HOW TO DO THIS; IT'S WHAT I DO WELL....

But I stopped myself. I'm sure she did, too. 

Where did we get our wires crossed? I make notes on every phone conversation, I send out a detailed confirmation that lists everything we're doing and how we're going to do it, I always have a trail of email a mile long... what had happened? 

Confirmations and expectations aside, it became clear to me that work of any kind on this celebratory day was not going to work... something I think the principal already knew.

I could not compete with my own book's button-making station, tee-shirt stamping station, sixties dance-moves station, and I certainly couldn't hold a candle to the evening's Countdown-themed dance a mere hours away -- the excitement was building like a fire about to combust.

And then it hit me: I was hired to be a station, one of six stations on a student rotation schedule for the day, all stations relating to Countdown, and I somehow misunderstood my assigned role in all the back-and-forth communication. I wasn't a star of any show; I wasn't the piece de resistance brought in for this Countdown celebration. The kids who had read the book over the summer were the stars -- actually, Countdown was the star -- and I was a worker bee, just like everyone else manning their stations, and I had a job to do. And I had stuck myself in a hole.

Months earlier, when this station idea had been proffered, I said no to six 45-minute talks. ("I will lose my voice and stamina, and that won't be fair to your students, teachers, or me.") I had instead worked out an arrangement for three 90-minute writing workshops which would have stretched my energies, of course, with 250 kids per session, but I would have their teachers to help me, the sessions would be interactive, I would incorporate time for actual writing, and I would not talk non-stop all day.

But there were other options. I might have stuck with six 45-minute sessions but made them (instead of presentations, which take an inordinate energy) Q&A's about Countdown with a workable number of students. Or. I could have politely declined altogether, if this, too, felt like too much.

That 45-minute station, structured in a workable format, was -- at core -- what my client needed. And that's what I didn't deliver.

The first two sessions were back-to-back mayhem (that's too strong a word; to be fair, I did a good job, it was just too long to hold onto a group of 250 kids in those circumstances). I punted while using my prepared slides for a writing workshop.

When I got to my midday break, I broke down my presentation, restructured it, and then did a much better job in the third session -- work smarter, not harder -- by making it all about Countdown, and by starting off with a no-nonsense Q&A that set the tone, interspersing it with slides that expanded my answers and also provided more background.

It worked like the proverbial charm, for an hour and ten minutes. I was astonished and grateful. But now it was the end of the day, kids were restless, and I was done.

When I motioned a nearby teacher and told her that I was going to let the kids go ten minutes early, she balked. "NO." That's exactly what she said. "We can't let them leave here until 2:20. You've got to keep them another 15 minutes. I know that sounds inhospitable, but you have to keep them in here. What about that summer freedom book you used in the last two sessions?"

I seethed. I was spent. My voice was shot, my feet were swollen, my patience was thinner than thin. I could toss this back at the classroom teacher and make it her problem, or I could make another choice. 

As the jostling and noise crescendoed, I slipped to the computer and pulled up the slides that tell the story behind Freedom Summer. I pulled the group together again and began to tell them the story of Annie Mae who worked for my grandmother in Mississippi in the sixties. I had the luxury of time to spin it out the way I like to do... the way I rarely have time to do.

I set the stage, I compared this Freedom Summer with the Freedom Summer I was writing about in book two of the Sixties Trilogy, and then I recited the story from memory as I showed Jerome LaGarrigue's fabulous art on slides. 

The room was stone silent. It is always so, with Freedom Summer. I silently thanked this teacher (whom I never saw again) for the inspiration and connection. I promised my voice I would not talk for the rest of the day. Week. I drank some water, I signed some books, and I dashed for the car waiting to take me to the airport. 

As I grabbed my luggage in the main office, I shook the principal's hand and thanked her for the day. She thanked me for coming: "I'm sorry it wasn't what you expected; we did our best." I couldn't manage a smile. "It was fine," I said. "We did well." Which we did. But I could barely contain my disappointment.

On the way to the airport my adrenalin was still running away with me, and I was so ragged out, I began to bitch to the driver, who of course knew nothing of what I do or what the situation was, but I couldn't stop myself, which is how I realized what I was doing.

Which is how I was able to stop. I gathered up my own poor, morose little spirit and said enough, Debbie. You are just blowing off the steam from your own impending meltdown from your own surprising failure. You did the best you could, given what you did not know, and given what you came to understand. Next time will be better.

And it will be.

I'm still sifting what I learned from this, but some of what I've learned is that I want to listen better up front. I want to ask better questions. I want to understand better the concept or situation or goals for the day. I want to be able to offer ideas ("how about a 45-minute Q&A with each group instead of a presentation?") that can slide seamlessly into a school's needs and goals while preserving my own energies and brain cells. I want to say no when I need to. And I want to always remember: I am in a school to be of service. I'll work on it.

The days in schools that go like clockwork are days I love like a sister. Those are most days in schools for me. The days that beat me up are few, and they are almost always my fault. I want to learn to be grateful for them, for they teach me to be a better teacher, a better learner, a better listener. They give me something of value to share with someone else.