Inspiration, power, networking?..

Prior to the beginning of this workshop I was steeped in anxiety and self-doubt. I am ashamed to say, that I found myself leafing through the University of Oregon schedule of summer classes, considering other options. "Chinese or Japanese?" I would ask the nearest acquaintance. What had I done to my summer? Each summer day was precious and for it to be wasted sitting in a dreadful class was more than I could handle. Writing was my least favorite academic activity. Was I just to fill valuable lifetime in a classroom just for the credit?

I had been 'accepted' into the writing program. That was both an honor and a heavy guilt upon my conscience. I could not go back on my word. I could not let people down. A part of me felt special at being a part of a national program.

A schedule change, beyond my control, yes, that would be a valid excuse! Perhaps, a family emergency would take me sadly away. Still, the day came and I showed up, resigned to my fate.

Within two days my whole attitudewas turned around. Every day was filled with inspiration and new skills. It was all so practical and immediately usable. I excitedly shared about the Power Point skills I now had and bragged about being WEB page proficient. Most importantly, I was now computer bilingual, I could use Mac and PC equipment. I had known a little bit about PC, but now I could hold my own. I had always been a Mac woman.

I went home and demanded that my partner come to my room and watch how easy it was to create a Power Point presentation. I quickly put together a few slides and showed her how to customize animation. Incredible!

Every activity we did was well paced and created a feeling of safety that reduced anxiety. I felt a healthy nervousness as I presented my own lesson plan. I thoroughly enjoyed the other presentations, as well. I found them to be fresh, very useful and looked forward to each one.

I personally experienced the biggest attitude shift with respect to my own writing. I had lost touch with what writing could be. It had become a laborious task associated with literature or history classes, where we would be required to write a three to five page paper on some aspect of what we had read, or a ten page paper on an era in the past. Writing was related to relative clauses and prepositional phrases. It was a critical arena where my creations were sliced and diced and graded, down.

My mind began to write a lot, unleashed to a do whatever it wanted . I was reading my stories to my family and they were thrilled. They wanted to hear more. I wrote children's stories for little Shilo and Ben. It was rewarding and fun. After all my bemoaning and depression, this class had turned out to be one of the best classes I have ever taken.

It was therapeutic. I processed my childhood and recalled beautiful moments. Including my dad in the stories was visibly moving for my siblings. They cried. He was gone and they missed him. We didn't talk about him as freely as we might, I believe, because he died from suicide. I think it was good to talk about familiar events.

The teacher modeled good teaching. So many times I have taken educational classes at the University where the teacher lectured about different teaching methods, never using them in the class as a healthy model, just lectured, and lectured some more. Here, we walked through each exercise and experienced it personally on a cellular level.

I loved listening to the writings of my classmates read aloud to the class or in small groups. It put me on the other side of the fence, so to speak, with the students that I have in my classes. I had thought that they might be bored or embarrassed. I had forgotten how soothing and interesting it was. I will start my next year of teaching with more sharing of student work. They will want to share their creations, as I was happy to share mine.

I have grown and been inspired to look at writing assignments in a new light. I will ask students to write and share from my own, renewed and positive perspective.