makes me think: how much of 'writer's block' is the fear of writing bad sentences. And how writing only happens by writing those terrible sentences. And why the mindset of the 'amateur' is so freeing because you are expected to be kind of lousy. And the tradeoff between being a beginner and not one. Pondering this while I endure a bout of 'writer's block.' M, as always, a wonderful piece to ponder...
oh sweetheart (a writer's writer, you!—thank you for reading), i'm grateful to you for reading. it's true, writers fetishize good sentences and hate bad sentences. you know, i was doing this little teaching exercise in prison where we collected different words and images, and then each person used them to imitate a lovely Merwin poem ("Separation"). But after, a student said something that totally struck me. He said, "I just want to say it's not about just about the words or lines"—is that how I was teaching it???—"but it's about the way you see the world." I really loved that. So maybe writers block is either a) too much sentence-pressure, as you say, which forgets to make room for the bigger picture—the sharing of a perspective, or b) the writer is a time in their life when their way of seeing the world is undergoing dramatic shifts—and therefore the block isn't really a block. i think i've suffered both (a) and (b) for the past five or six years, plus (c) a paralysis regarding whether books can change lives (that's the subject of the latest substack). But I might finally be emerging from it. all that is to say—i know the pain. And I'm here with you if you need anything.
This is such an important piece! This passage in particular is powerful, particularly the last sentence: “Why is it that the more educated some people become, the less likely they are to connect with those on the margins? Isn’t that another way of saying you become a worse teacher the more you learn? It ought to be the opposite, of course: the more we learn, the more open, versatile, empathetic, and resourceful we should become. The guard was saying something else, too: that people who live in the margins don’t get to be kids.”
This resonated with my quite deeply, given my work in advocacy spaces where marginalized populations are denied the freedom to be children, the freedom to simply LIVE the way many of us perceive as the norm.
Also love reading about your current projects and endeavors! Thank you.
Thank you dear Krisha for reading (especially after i was so pushy about adding you to this substack—you were so gracious about it!I I just knew we'd connect with each other). I loved reading your writing about your work with global justice and admire all the work you're doing. Can't wait to hear more about your work and tell me if you're in Taiwan!
Having brilliant teachers truly privileges one to the corners and horizons of learning; having teachers with empathy who are able to “meet the learner” in heart *and* mind is truly a blessing. Listening to your talk at the book fair in Taipei, and reading this now, I am reminded that you are one of those precious few who embody both. (And apologies for the delay of so many months to tell you this!) And while we are no doubt shaped by people with good minds, I think the guard was saying that we are shaped even more by people with good hearts. I remember thinking at the book fair–when not equally entertained by the “psychodrama” of daughter and father collaboration–how much I could have learned with you as a teaching colleague, and how much my school would have been enriched by your model. Teaching for sure has its troughs of doubt and disappointment, but you should never doubt how impactful your experiences as a teacher have been not only on your learners, but on those with whom you connect through writing.
Ah, i'm happy and grateful that you took time to come see me at the book fair in Taipei. Thank you dear Craig!!! And i'm grateful to you for reading my writing with such heart and care. THIS is so true: "Meet the learner in heart *and* mind." I will write this on a post-it and put this on my wall to remind myself. Hope that our paths cross again soon and thank you again for being wonderful.
You’re too kind, Michelle. Indeed, I had to limit my response to “Letting Go…” as a hedge against appearing too overindulgent: there were so many threads in the article that drew me in! Albert probably won’t recall, but it was me who approached him after the book fair talk to mention what I saw as thematic commonalities between incarcerated youth and with [Taiwan’s] indigenous population, who are perhaps metaphorically incarcerated. My connections are with the Atayal communities–through friendships and alliances with schools–and I would be happy to make introductions should that interest you. I return to Taiwan in late fall.
Oh, I would be so thrilled and grateful for those relationships to schools, and I'd love to learn from their experiences. I know those relationships are hard-won, so I will take care with them—thanks deeply for your trust. I think that connection makes sense, as states find different ways to cage minorities or marginalized people. On the flipside, the strength and creativity of one population can inspire another across the world. In France I'm struck by how incarcerated people (who are largely Black or from Middle Eastern families) look to African American experience in prison as a source of meaning. All to say: there's so much more to do wherever we go, and I'm happy we'll meet again in late fall.
I’ll keep updated on your comings and goings through Broad and Ample Road, and look forward to shared learning about indigenous society in Taiwan when I arrive in November. As academics and school principals, having grown up in Atayal village themselves, my friends have devoted themselves to cultural revitalization and societal empowerment in their communities in 新竹縣, and seem to have boundless capacity for forming new alliances to that purpose. Meanwhile, you have my email should you ever wish to reach out. (And apologies, I’m not really facile with Substack–other than what I get from you and a few others. Old school!) And don’t work too hard.
Oh wow, I really resonated with this piece -- thank you for writing it! As a teacher (and perfectionist), I struggle a lot with making mistakes (how can students rely on your feedback if you're not "perfect"?), but slowly I've come to realize that when I admit to my mistakes, it makes my students feel better when they too inevitably make mistakes. Like you said, perfectionism isn't a very helpful value in the classroom; rather, it's more important that students see the importance of persevering and growing through mistakes.
I grew up with grandparents who spoke teochew but the various language policies in Singapore made it such that I grew up speaking english and mandarin, both languages were inaccessible to my grandparents. I relate to the feeling of wistfully longing for conversations as an adult, but also the faith that much was communicated in their care for me as a child.. when I encounter teochew-speaking communities in the Chinese diaspora in Asia like in Thailand, Cambodia, there is a sense of kinship despite my rudimentary command of the language and even as our interactions were limited to asking for directions!
this reflection on Teochew-speaking communities is so interesting and i would love to learn how to say a few words in teochew. And I love this: "but also with the faith that much was communicated in their care of me as a child"—this is so true. I try to think about that too. and it's easier now with having a toddler. just seeing her pure pleasure in interacting with her body (running, playing with her feet) and with the world (picking flowers, the claw machines) gives me so much delight ... i can believe that we gave our grandparents that kind of pleasure, even if we lacked the ability to communicate deeply.
well, first step for me was to stop caring about my grades. as long as I passed and learned what I wanted to learn, grades were just meaningless numbers to me (I learned this lesson two decades too late)
What an insightful post, as always. And I completely agree with this: “The sort of classroom I love lets each of us become a person we respect, a person who practices her own values.”
I’ll look forward to more of your notes on the prison classroom experience this summer!
Thanks so much for reading Pavel! You're so kind, and thanks for caring. I would love to hear about your best classroom experiences. We also have a workshop this week with formerly incarcerated people and prison educators, and I am looking forward to that.
"Isn’t the desire to master, even a language, the desire to dominate? Had I wanted to dominate English because I witnessed how it dominated my parents? Isn’t the language we use to describe other people’s struggles with language unfair, laden with judgment—as though English can be “broken” like dishware, as though an accent can be “thick” like a soup?"
Grateful, as always, for your questions, and for another opportunity to follow your gorgeously meandering mind. Here's to letting go, to vanquishing the pursuit of perfection <3
I really enjoy reading this piece!
Dear Grace, aww, thanks so much for reading! It means a lot to me. <3
makes me think: how much of 'writer's block' is the fear of writing bad sentences. And how writing only happens by writing those terrible sentences. And why the mindset of the 'amateur' is so freeing because you are expected to be kind of lousy. And the tradeoff between being a beginner and not one. Pondering this while I endure a bout of 'writer's block.' M, as always, a wonderful piece to ponder...
oh sweetheart (a writer's writer, you!—thank you for reading), i'm grateful to you for reading. it's true, writers fetishize good sentences and hate bad sentences. you know, i was doing this little teaching exercise in prison where we collected different words and images, and then each person used them to imitate a lovely Merwin poem ("Separation"). But after, a student said something that totally struck me. He said, "I just want to say it's not about just about the words or lines"—is that how I was teaching it???—"but it's about the way you see the world." I really loved that. So maybe writers block is either a) too much sentence-pressure, as you say, which forgets to make room for the bigger picture—the sharing of a perspective, or b) the writer is a time in their life when their way of seeing the world is undergoing dramatic shifts—and therefore the block isn't really a block. i think i've suffered both (a) and (b) for the past five or six years, plus (c) a paralysis regarding whether books can change lives (that's the subject of the latest substack). But I might finally be emerging from it. all that is to say—i know the pain. And I'm here with you if you need anything.
This is such an important piece! This passage in particular is powerful, particularly the last sentence: “Why is it that the more educated some people become, the less likely they are to connect with those on the margins? Isn’t that another way of saying you become a worse teacher the more you learn? It ought to be the opposite, of course: the more we learn, the more open, versatile, empathetic, and resourceful we should become. The guard was saying something else, too: that people who live in the margins don’t get to be kids.”
This resonated with my quite deeply, given my work in advocacy spaces where marginalized populations are denied the freedom to be children, the freedom to simply LIVE the way many of us perceive as the norm.
Also love reading about your current projects and endeavors! Thank you.
Thank you dear Krisha for reading (especially after i was so pushy about adding you to this substack—you were so gracious about it!I I just knew we'd connect with each other). I loved reading your writing about your work with global justice and admire all the work you're doing. Can't wait to hear more about your work and tell me if you're in Taiwan!
Having brilliant teachers truly privileges one to the corners and horizons of learning; having teachers with empathy who are able to “meet the learner” in heart *and* mind is truly a blessing. Listening to your talk at the book fair in Taipei, and reading this now, I am reminded that you are one of those precious few who embody both. (And apologies for the delay of so many months to tell you this!) And while we are no doubt shaped by people with good minds, I think the guard was saying that we are shaped even more by people with good hearts. I remember thinking at the book fair–when not equally entertained by the “psychodrama” of daughter and father collaboration–how much I could have learned with you as a teaching colleague, and how much my school would have been enriched by your model. Teaching for sure has its troughs of doubt and disappointment, but you should never doubt how impactful your experiences as a teacher have been not only on your learners, but on those with whom you connect through writing.
Ah, i'm happy and grateful that you took time to come see me at the book fair in Taipei. Thank you dear Craig!!! And i'm grateful to you for reading my writing with such heart and care. THIS is so true: "Meet the learner in heart *and* mind." I will write this on a post-it and put this on my wall to remind myself. Hope that our paths cross again soon and thank you again for being wonderful.
You’re too kind, Michelle. Indeed, I had to limit my response to “Letting Go…” as a hedge against appearing too overindulgent: there were so many threads in the article that drew me in! Albert probably won’t recall, but it was me who approached him after the book fair talk to mention what I saw as thematic commonalities between incarcerated youth and with [Taiwan’s] indigenous population, who are perhaps metaphorically incarcerated. My connections are with the Atayal communities–through friendships and alliances with schools–and I would be happy to make introductions should that interest you. I return to Taiwan in late fall.
Oh, I would be so thrilled and grateful for those relationships to schools, and I'd love to learn from their experiences. I know those relationships are hard-won, so I will take care with them—thanks deeply for your trust. I think that connection makes sense, as states find different ways to cage minorities or marginalized people. On the flipside, the strength and creativity of one population can inspire another across the world. In France I'm struck by how incarcerated people (who are largely Black or from Middle Eastern families) look to African American experience in prison as a source of meaning. All to say: there's so much more to do wherever we go, and I'm happy we'll meet again in late fall.
I’ll keep updated on your comings and goings through Broad and Ample Road, and look forward to shared learning about indigenous society in Taiwan when I arrive in November. As academics and school principals, having grown up in Atayal village themselves, my friends have devoted themselves to cultural revitalization and societal empowerment in their communities in 新竹縣, and seem to have boundless capacity for forming new alliances to that purpose. Meanwhile, you have my email should you ever wish to reach out. (And apologies, I’m not really facile with Substack–other than what I get from you and a few others. Old school!) And don’t work too hard.
Oh wow, I really resonated with this piece -- thank you for writing it! As a teacher (and perfectionist), I struggle a lot with making mistakes (how can students rely on your feedback if you're not "perfect"?), but slowly I've come to realize that when I admit to my mistakes, it makes my students feel better when they too inevitably make mistakes. Like you said, perfectionism isn't a very helpful value in the classroom; rather, it's more important that students see the importance of persevering and growing through mistakes.
Incredibly insightful and poetic as always.
thanks so much dear monica for reading. with love to you.
So many thoughts, thank you for this post!!
I grew up with grandparents who spoke teochew but the various language policies in Singapore made it such that I grew up speaking english and mandarin, both languages were inaccessible to my grandparents. I relate to the feeling of wistfully longing for conversations as an adult, but also the faith that much was communicated in their care for me as a child.. when I encounter teochew-speaking communities in the Chinese diaspora in Asia like in Thailand, Cambodia, there is a sense of kinship despite my rudimentary command of the language and even as our interactions were limited to asking for directions!
this reflection on Teochew-speaking communities is so interesting and i would love to learn how to say a few words in teochew. And I love this: "but also with the faith that much was communicated in their care of me as a child"—this is so true. I try to think about that too. and it's easier now with having a toddler. just seeing her pure pleasure in interacting with her body (running, playing with her feet) and with the world (picking flowers, the claw machines) gives me so much delight ... i can believe that we gave our grandparents that kind of pleasure, even if we lacked the ability to communicate deeply.
"I had been taught how to be perfect but not how to live. (Alison C. Rollins.)"
I really felt that line.
thanks so much. i did too, and i keep thinking about it. (but how to live?! If you have ideas, tell me!)
well, first step for me was to stop caring about my grades. as long as I passed and learned what I wanted to learn, grades were just meaningless numbers to me (I learned this lesson two decades too late)
What an insightful post, as always. And I completely agree with this: “The sort of classroom I love lets each of us become a person we respect, a person who practices her own values.”
I’ll look forward to more of your notes on the prison classroom experience this summer!
Thanks so much for reading Pavel! You're so kind, and thanks for caring. I would love to hear about your best classroom experiences. We also have a workshop this week with formerly incarcerated people and prison educators, and I am looking forward to that.
"Isn’t the desire to master, even a language, the desire to dominate? Had I wanted to dominate English because I witnessed how it dominated my parents? Isn’t the language we use to describe other people’s struggles with language unfair, laden with judgment—as though English can be “broken” like dishware, as though an accent can be “thick” like a soup?"
Grateful, as always, for your questions, and for another opportunity to follow your gorgeously meandering mind. Here's to letting go, to vanquishing the pursuit of perfection <3
Thanks so much for your generosity in reading Panthea. And for your heart. It means a lot to me. I am looking forward to seeing you in Taiwan ❤️