What to Say to the Excessively Clever Eye-Rolling Fifth Grader

[dr_pretentious]

I am prepared to offer you certain commitments. I will never tell you that you have to like writing. I will never judge you or belittle you for not liking writing. I will never even tell you that you would be happier if you liked writing. I will never expect you to lie to me about liking writing. There are lots of things other people like that I don't--carpentry, calculus, cooking if it takes more than thirty minutes. There's nothing wrong with not liking stuff. I will do everything in my power to teach you well, whether you like what you learn or not.

If.

You've heard teachers tell you that you need to meet them halfway. There's a very specific halfway where I want you to meet me. I only ask for two commitments from you.

One: That you do the work I assign you, even if you don't like it. During our weekly hour, we both have our jobs to do.

Two: That you allow for the possibility that someday, you might write something, or encounter some kind of writing, and not hate doing it. It's fine if you write and happen to notice, Hey, I'm not enjoying this, but it's a whole other thing if you hate writing as a matter of policy. Don't cheat yourself. Don't rob yourself. If you catch yourself having a good time, let yourself have a good time.

Can you sign on for that? Because if you can't, your mom will have to hire somebody else to do this work with you, and you might not be offered another deal this good.


That's what came out of my mouth when I opened it. Apparently, I lucked into the right thing to say.

Comments

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Now that's a great speech. I'd practice it. It seems so perfect for a ... (doing some quick calculations...) 10 year old, who is trying to be his (or her) own person, but still hasn't had enough experience to know what he or she really WILL like and be good at. Who knew when I was a 5th grader that I would be good at what I was good at? Certainly not me.

Luck?

[leapfaith.livejournal.com]

Luck had almost nothing to do with it, in my not so humble opinion. You know whereof you speak. You have had plenty of experience teaching writing, and learning writing, and spoke with your soul and mind working together, and being a good writer, who was once a 5th grader herself (the good? old days?), you knew your audience. Not luck. Skill and talent.

Re: Luck?

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

What s/he said.

[garybart.livejournal.com]

I like this line: "Luck is the residue of design".

(Apparently, said by a major league baseball exec. Not who you'd expect.)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a gorgeous sentence.

[tracyandrook.livejournal.com]

It's fantastic. It's good. You are teasing out into words to the child, the thoughts that grownups need to go through themselves as they confront a mandatory task they don't think they'll like. In other words, you are teaching a child to think like a grownup. (I'll steal it too, if yo don't mind)
You know,of course, that some people take a really long time to get these thoughts down straight; and some days it works better than others. On days it's not working so great, that could be some more writing.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

By all means, appropriate it. I'm a big believer in open source pedagogy.

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Wow! Your theory of teaching sounds a lot like my theory of child rearing.

[oaktavia.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!
I'll be appropriating this along with tracyandrook - though I'll be adjusting it to be used in a Craft setting! Oh boy, you can't believe how this will be one heck of a help!!!
thanks!!