The Joy of Teaching

I never imagined I would be an Adult Continuing Education and GED instructor when I was child in Houston. I had no desire to teach. My mind and heart were fixed on the bright lights of Broadway, and I thought I'd eventually relocate to Los Angeles and work in television and film. If anything, I would have probably taught acting workshops and once I felt qualified, I would directed and taught other directors. 

I think the best teachers are actors and directors, for no other reason could we lead and inspire various personalities, skill sets, and appease parents. Apart from helping classmates in school, younger siblings, and later their children with multiplication tables and personal essays, I didn't think of myself as a teacher. That changed when I relocated to New York and was between jobs as most actors and freelancers tend to be. I responded to an online ad for GED instructors in Spanish Harlem, and didn't know the first thing about formal instruction.

The job description called for a focused, dedicated, and energetic education professional. The only thing that wasn't on my resume was certified teaching gigs. I was accustomed to casting calls, cold readings, and convincing someone that I was right for the part. How different could this potential job be once I learned my role teaching inner city teens and adults?  

I was to prepare a fifteen-minute lesson, and if the students didn't like me, I'd be on my way. My former boss stood nervously in the door as I passed out handouts, loosened my tie, and set about my mock training and part two of the job interview. What felt like an hour, was in reality twenty minutes. We locked eyes and she gave the hand signal to continue because I had a captive audience. 

In a matter of a week I was to become an instructor, sensitive to high school dropouts and adults who had long since abandoned their education to marry, raise a family, and coincidentally put their children through school. 

Walking across town once a week with my three-ring binder in my backpack, I never knew what to expect, and which students would attend having understood and completed their assignments. Some students complained that the work was too difficult, while others didn't have resources to buy classroom supplies and were embarrassed to say so. 

I was getting an informal education not afforded me in the Houston suburbs. There were days I felt square and out completely out of touch, but I forged ahead with Shakespeare, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, The Elements of Style, and The Elements of Grammar. I was determined to expose my students, level the playing field, somehow. 

A few of my fondest memories. Being called Mister, which of course reminded me of Sidney Poitier. My female students, no big stretch there, embraced learning and oftentimes challenged the male students. The time some of my former students offered to walk me home after a disruptive student threatened to beat me up because he didn't understand an assignment, and felt by pommeling me into a pulp, would make it and me go away.

I miss my students and that first storefront GED workshop. I then moved on to two community centers and two nights a week when my former boss relocated to new educational nonprofits. I miss creating weekly lesson plans, the smell of the dry erase markers, and seeing the look on a student's face when the light bulb pops on. Teaching a class is different than being a writing workshop moderator, but I use a similar toolkit.

All isn't lost. I recently began teaching Stage II Fiction Workshop for writers ages thirty-nine to sixty. I look forward to hitting my stride again, but with fewer students who happen to have formal education.  

Who are your favorite teachers? What did they do to inspire you? What are your best school memories? 

Community Building

I am coming into my own as a community builder as founder and moderator of Morningside Writers Group, organizer of past English/Spanish intercambio groups in the metro NYC area, and when I used to dance barefoot in Central Park with the West African drummers and dancers.

I didn't set out to be a community organizer. This role developed organically over time because I was a frustrated artist seeking others to workshop my fiction, screenplays, and most recently personal essays and memoir chapters.

I happened onto the outdoor roller-skating and inline skating rink when the disco and R&B music floated through the trees and over the lake in Central Park one hot summer afternoon. I was taken aback by the assortment of people seemingly stuck in a time warp, dancing, wiggling, and shaking their groove thing to music from my youth made popular in the movie Roll Bounce.

I found a new home away from home among the locals and tourists armed with camcorders; and for the hours spent, I was in a different world where nothing else mattered besides the bass and treble pouring from the speakers. The organizers were good-natured, spirited, and passionate about skating. They had t-shirts, took photos, and arranged other events throughout the season.

The community welcomed anyone with a pair of skates and a desire to congregate or temporarily escape from whatever ailed them just outside the park perimeter.

The West African drum and dance circle was a similar international community that was just as welcoming and escapist. I'd never seen anything like it before in Texas. I'd only seen or heard African drumming and dancing on PBS. There was a touring company years ago, Ipi Tombi, that I was unable to see, but knew they existed. Prior to the Central Park drum circle, the only other African dance I was familiar with was Alvin Ailey and Arthur Mitchell because of Black History Month.

Both communities subconsciously filtered into the foundation of Morningside. I wanted to create a group for various writing abilities and personality types. I wanted to create a modern-day interracial Harlem Renaissance.

The past five years have been instructive on what works in New York City. I don't know if the same would hold true in Houston, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Does it matter that New York is the understood literary capital? It shouldn't because successful writers live in other parts of the world. My goal moving forward is to create a thriving writing community of published fiction writers and produced playwrights and screenwriters.

Seeking Writing Group Assistant/Intern

When I set out to create a writer’s nirvana five years ago, I envisioned a community of writers workshopping and helping each other achieve their writing, publishing, and production goals. We have exceeded my expectations thanks the current group members.

When I first started in my living room, it was fraught with upheaval and the occasional triumph as individual fiction writers discovered their voice, style, and if in fact they were writers.

After incorporating and branding Morningside, I relocated to the Sony Building Atrium because I was tired of cleaning up after group members, and that it was a centralized location.

Four groups and several years later, I now need part-time assistance with the administrative, workshop, and website duties for Morningside.

For anyone out there reading, the following is the ad I placed. Wish me luck!

* * *

Morningside Writers Group seeks a part-time unpaid assistant/intern to help with administrative/clerical, workshop, and website tasks.

The ideal applicant has a minimum of five hours weekly to help the founder/moderator in person, electronically, and over the phone. Tasks may include group scheduling/distributing, bookkeeping, Xeroxing, writing and responding to e-mail inquiries, soliciting/interacting with monthly columnists, and administrative needs as they arise.

We could offer writing mentoring or editing if the potential candidate is an aspiring writer (fiction, graphic novel, memoir, or screenwriting) but the administrative tasks are essential above all else.

Please send a cover letter, résumé, and why you'd be interested in working as an assistant/intern.

Thanks in advance!

New and Noteworthy

I recently came across three websites of interest while flipping through an old issue of Essence Magazine while my Adult Basic Education students took their TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education) given by New York State.

The first site I'd heard about on Oprah when Susan Taylor was a guest, Essence Cares; the goal of this site is mentoring. "Our critical call to action simply asks this: that every able Black adult put his or her guiding hand on a vulnerable young person's shoulder. So many of our young people-our treasure and our future-are in peril. At this moment, the negative forces claiming our children are more powerful than our community's and country's efforts to secure them."

The second is Victoria Rowell's organization for foster children. Why this site? One of my aunts was a foster parent to several children when I was growing up. I saw at an early age the emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse some displaced or abandoned children endure.

The final site is Wallpaper Magazine, because I like the look of it, and am considering sending in a query letter or three.

I hope you all enjoy the sites, or get involved if so inclined.