I see it as a tiny, silver lining to the crisis and the quarantine because while it will be a new assignment, it's likely to be one that taps into writing (or at least thinking) they are already doing. I say "tiny" because I hesitate to wax poetic about the "good" that will come out of the pandemic since it almost seems anathema, but there's no question these extraordinary times will inspire us to do things we normally don't do.
Indeed, at the start of the term, I asked them to keep journals but had the sense few were writing in them outside of class (it's a course on memoir). Now I suspect they are galvanized. This hot-house atmosphere of illness and fear has them living in new ways, with inspiration a-plenty, and a desperate need to vent their frustrations somewhere. And their entries are LONG!
I was so inspired by their writing that I pitched a column to the Brevity Nonfiction Blog about it and the editors, I'm thrilled to say, decided to run it. You can read it here:
https://brevity.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/my-students-are-finally-keeping-a-journal/
As I say in the piece for Brevity, "An unusual moment in our world has created an opening for me as a teacher to reinforce the very principles I've been trying to convey (write whenever you can, track details, take your mental temperature). But ... how to replicate next time?"
In any event, my students so far are capturing exactly what I imagined, as I mentioned in my piece for Brevity; "the small changes, the absence of one activity or obligation creating space for something else, the repercussions of our new routines (one student fears the increased screen time from working virtually is interfering with her sleep and I would agree!)."
I don't plan on sharing their entries but here are two of mine:
*March 26, 2020*
File under, Thank God/silver
lining/finally: I am in love with James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son.”
In an introduction to the older
edition I am reading, borrowed from Olin, Baldwin writes, “I love America more
than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on
the right to criticize her perpetually.”
*March 25, 2020*
Leo yesterday had a Zoom meeting
with his teacher. The same Zoom software I am using to teach my class at
Wesleyan, except it’s not AT Wesleyan anymore.
He’s above average in reading and
likes Math a lot, so perhaps we are lucky in some ways because I don’t think he will miss out as much as one might fear.
Nonetheless, a part of me grieves
that he’s been robbed of the fundamental social nature of school, particularly
as an only child.
Yet I am always of two minds –
literally always, before coronavirus and probably always, and I think of it as
an occupational hazard as a journalist.
He should be in school but in MY
HOME SCHOOL he can rock in his chair or even slump (for a while at least), he
can stand up to do math problems, he can walk around the computer room on the
third floor while he explains fables to me. Oh, and we have gym every day,
multiple times a day.
And yet – the other mind weighing in
again – he has not played with a friend in a week.
-30-
