When I had this email conversation, I didn't know that the entire class was functionally illiterate. They're not stupid people; they are functionally illiterate because of the systemic failure of the public school system all over the country.
This is Massachusetts, home to many of the most prestigious colleges in the world. If it's this bad here, what it is like everywhere else?
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Helpful opinions
Justin M Reed
Actions
In response to the message from Lena Kochman, 2/4/2016
To:
Thursday, February 04, 2016 12:09 PM
Hi Lena,
One other thing--I want to emphasize that I truly enjoy teaching and that my priority as a teacher is to help improve my students' writing. I hope I didn't come across too harshly when saying teaching was my day job, etc. What I wanted to emphasize is that I am first and foremost a writer, and thus that I am on the side of your writing (as opposed to your grade). I want to put my writing skills to use to help my students above all else--that's my end goal in the classroom, even before bringing appreciation to literature. But that's a close second :).
Best,
Justin
One other thing--I want to emphasize that I truly enjoy teaching and that my priority as a teacher is to help improve my students' writing. I hope I didn't come across too harshly when saying teaching was my day job, etc. What I wanted to emphasize is that I am first and foremost a writer, and thus that I am on the side of your writing (as opposed to your grade). I want to put my writing skills to use to help my students above all else--that's my end goal in the classroom, even before bringing appreciation to literature. But that's a close second :).
Anyhow, thanks for your thoughtful consideration to all of my emails!
Best,
Justin
Justin M Reed
Thursday, February 04, 2016 12:03 PM
Hi Lena,
Thanks for both the suggestion and the heads up! Sad to say, it is not an uncommon occurrence for college students to be unprepared for college-level writing--often severely so, as you have described. The first paper is where I will do my best to address these issues and, when needed, work one-on-one with students.
Again, thanks for sharing your story with me and, also, for information about the Glass House Shelter Project. It seems like an amazing rewarding opportunity!
Happy writing,
J
Lena Kochman
Thursday, February 04, 2016 11:43 AM
Hi Justin,
(Name redacted), Visiting Fellow at UMass Boston/Center for Social Policy, Visiting Professor of English at Salem State University, and Executive Director of the Glass House Shelter Project, brings accredited college level reading & writing courses into shelters in the Greater Boston area.
I think it was this lady who visited the shelter a few weeks ago. She seems to get a lot from helping homeless people to learn to write, and they have gotten a lot from it, also. She hasn't worked with homeless women before, which was why the director of the women's side of the shelter, (name redacted), asked her to speak to homeless women at the Pine Street Inn. Some impressive things have happened; (name redacted) said that one of her former, male students, whom she met at a homeless shelter, went on from her class and is now graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor's in Neuroscience.
There's a poster for the project on a bulletin board at the Pine Street Inn. I got the email address and thought I would send it to you:
glasshouseshelterproject@gmail.com
It seems to me that you could bring a lot to homeless men in particular if you could teach for that program. Shelters are full of people who have never had the chance or never knew how to access opportunities to learn to express their thoughts coherently and meaningfully. It's dreadful how little the system does, for the most part, to encourage homeless people to think that an intellectual life is available to anyone who does the work to get it. Even places that have training programs focus entirely on service work; maintenance, housekeeping, culinary arts. There are people who are happy in those professions; however, to offer nothing except those opportunities is indicative of a system that does not think of homeless people as real human beings, no matter what it says to the contrary.
I don't know how the Glass House Shelter Project works, or who teaches for it other than (name redacted). I just thought that you might like to send them an email to find out more about it and possibly do a few classes for them if you have time.
Lena
I have a tendency to lecture people. Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing that or just giving a helpful opinion.
I read your email to the class about class participation. I understand that it's awful to try to teach a class when only half the people are listening; that's a problem that teachers have all over the world. I don't think your demeanor in class is apathetic or condescending. I will say that you made it clear on the first day that you think of teaching as your day job and that what you really want is to be a writer. I also don't know that you can blame people, particularly young people, for being the products of a system that hasn't consistently succeeded at engaging them.
During the first workshop that the class had, when we gathered in groups that were formed by the people around us, there was a young woman whose paper concerned me. Every sentence had several grammatical errors. I wrote all over the paper; I wasn't rude to her, I just corrected all of the grammatical errors that I saw, and there were a lot of them. She doesn't seem stupid; it seems to me that what has happened is that no teacher has ever stopped the entropy of her learning process. She's not even writing at an 8th-grade level. I think she can do a lot better, but not if someone doesn't step in to address the problem. If she writes a grammatically correct sentence, it's probably by accident. I don't know how she would respond if you took her aside and expressed a serious concern that she has to improve her writing skills; she might be offended, but I think it's worth the risk because she can't write. The only way that she could have gotten into the class was that nobody has ever cared enough to stop passing her through without teaching her to write.
I also wanted to mention a program that I thought you might really like. It's the Glass House Shelter Project.
This is some information:
Massachusetts, United States
(Name redacted), Visiting Fellow at UMass Boston/Center for Social Policy, Visiting Professor of English at Salem State University, and Executive Director of the Glass House Shelter Project, brings accredited college level reading & writing courses into shelters in the Greater Boston area.
I think it was this lady who visited the shelter a few weeks ago. She seems to get a lot from helping homeless people to learn to write, and they have gotten a lot from it, also. She hasn't worked with homeless women before, which was why the director of the women's side of the shelter, (name redacted), asked her to speak to homeless women at the Pine Street Inn. Some impressive things have happened; (name redacted) said that one of her former, male students, whom she met at a homeless shelter, went on from her class and is now graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor's in Neuroscience.
There's a poster for the project on a bulletin board at the Pine Street Inn. I got the email address and thought I would send it to you:
glasshouseshelterproject@gmail.com
It seems to me that you could bring a lot to homeless men in particular if you could teach for that program. Shelters are full of people who have never had the chance or never knew how to access opportunities to learn to express their thoughts coherently and meaningfully. It's dreadful how little the system does, for the most part, to encourage homeless people to think that an intellectual life is available to anyone who does the work to get it. Even places that have training programs focus entirely on service work; maintenance, housekeeping, culinary arts. There are people who are happy in those professions; however, to offer nothing except those opportunities is indicative of a system that does not think of homeless people as real human beings, no matter what it says to the contrary.
I don't know how the Glass House Shelter Project works, or who teaches for it other than (name redacted). I just thought that you might like to send them an email to find out more about it and possibly do a few classes for them if you have time.
Lena
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Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, July 20, 2017 @ 2:30 p.m./This is probably the last page that I'll publish today. I have to be at the Pine Street Inn to do the bed lottery before 3:45 p.m., which is what everyone who lives at the Pine Street Inn has to do every day.