Delight

I just had one of those wonderfully blessed teaching moments last Friday: watching as Sara, listening to her voice play back in GarageBand her rendering a poem by Emily Dickinson. She squealed in delight, put her hand to her mouth, laughed. At the end of class, she enthused, "Do you want to hear my poem?" Too bad it was late and she had to go. "On Monday," I said.

Already I had students who were teaching me as well as each other, going beyond the assignment, a poetic soundscape (based on th assignment designed by Dan Schmit for GarageBand Mechanics -- look for the sample chapter download). I feel bad because I have to hold them back, keep them from spending too much time on my assignment, rather than working on their other classes. Yet, it is this kind of desire to learn that keeps teachers going.

I can see why the movie Freedom Writers has such appeal. You see the Erin Gruwell character responding to the delight students have in expressing themselves. She is hooked. We all get hooked that way. And it is so sad when the "experienced," jaded teachers react territorially or jealously or cynically. They have lost the delight in doing their jobs every day; they have lost the ability to imagine the delight in their students.

And there it was again, in a section of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird assigned for my Creative Writing class, her advice to writers to be open to seeing the delight in every-day things, in whatever surrounds them. It is what keeps us human, and happy, and good. It's up to writers to delight in the world, even its wrecked sadness (because sadness and pain is so human), and to wake up the rest of the sleeping people out there to what they cannot even see.

Delight is catching.