well that’s just the risk you take if you decide to teach creative writing
Absolutely true. Creative writing attracts creative people. Expect the unexpected.
Still, it’s funny that this is about a little kid.
In the mid 90’s I was in a computer class and we had some really basic paint program that our teacher said we had to make a piece of art with that included a saying.
This was at the height of the Got Milk campaign so guess what everyone did, a cow or a glass with Got Milk as their slogan. Since we were allowed to listen to CDs with the CD ROM and a pair of headphones I popped in some Aerosmith and made a geometric man with a Dr Seuss hat and my slogan was “Reality is such a drag”.
The next day the teacher calls everyone but me up and gives them their B graded print out, then he calls me up and hands me mine with an A+ and says that’s for not doing got milk and actually being creative…by the way where did you come up with that? I told him I heard it on the Aerosmith album I was listening to, he grinned and asked if I liked Boston. I told him I hadn’t listened to them before, and the next day he had a Boston CD sitting at my desk when I sat down, turned out he had a book of CDs he kept in there and let me borrow anything I wanted during class for the rest of the year.
Good teachers can make such a big difference, and it’s almost always in these kinds of unquantifiable, “I just encouraged the student in the way they needed” kinds of ways. This, as much as anything else, is why defunding the education system is so criminal. Stressed-out, underpaid and overworked teachers just won’t have the mental space to do these kinds of things.
Stressed-out, underpaid and overworked teachers just won’t have the mental space to do these kinds of things.
Not only that, but teachers are now actively reprimanded for these kinds of interactions.
