Falling in love again

I’ve fallen in love with teaching again.

For this I owe a debt to the smart, creative, focused “stories spark change” graduate students in my University of Washington CommLead storytelling seminar. They are public radio journalists, freelancers, videographers, nonprofit communications specialists, techies, veterans, mothers, fathers. They work all day. Then they spent high-energy Saturdays with me delving into the art and craft of narrative, learning how to tell important stories in compelling ways. And no one nods off. And when five o’clock comes, no one rushes for the door.

And I owe a debt to the forward-thinking, “best and brightest” Austrian journalists I work with, both in Europe and in Seattle, who do not have to be persuaded that journalism matters. They know it does. They live it every day.

But my biggest debt is to the men in my writers group at Oregon State Penitentiary, felons all, murderers most, and some of the best read, most thoughtful, most attentive, most generous, most open to (craving of) constructive critique of any group I’ve ever worked with. Every hour spent with them—and I’ve spent hundreds during the past four years—has been inspiring, enlightening, harrowing (not for my safety but for the stories I hear) and bone-deep satisfying.

There was a time, four or five years ago, when my love of teaching (long a complement to my writing life) was at an all-time low. I was unhappily immersed in “academic life” (which, alas, is not synonymous with teaching) as a full-time full professor. I was expending energy fighting for programs I believed in (and generally losing). I was wasting time (and becoming the kind of person I didn’t want to be) battling over turf. I was spending far too much time sitting in meetings where the people who actually held the power pretended that you had a say. I was working with people who pretended to like each other but didn’t.

I should have left before I did. But that regret has now been effectively scoured. I have learned—these new students of mine have taught me—how to love teaching again.