Carrie’s post this week about her current stint as a writer-in-residence made me reminisce about my own experiences with education. My mother always wanted me to be a teacher. When I was young she would frequently drop hints about what a great profession teaching was, how important teachers were and how much she’d like me to be one. My mom also loved to teach, and while she never worked at a school she taught dance as well as Bible study.
Unfortunately I’ve always felt I am the very last person on earth who would ever work in a school or classroom. After a first grade teacher locked me in a dark closet for most of a school day (my crime: I wouldn’t stop crying after she screamed at me) I didn’t just fear teachers, I hated them — all of them. And boy, could I hold a grudge. Mom had to drag me back to school that next day and pretty much every day for the next eleven years. I ditched whenever I could, which was often. Some years I spent more time in detention or on suspension than I actually did in my classes.
The only education I wanted came from reading books, which I loved, and a number of wonderful ladies who worked at the public library. I would read anything, and when I ran through an author’s complete works the ladies would guide me on to someone new. The public library became the only classroom I ever felt comfortable in, and I knew it was the right place for me to learn on my own. If Lincoln could teach himself from books, so could I — no teacher required.
After I (miraculously) graduated high school, I joined the military. The service doesn’t care about one’s childhood traumas; everyone is the same in uniform. Basic training knocked most of the snot out of me, tore me down and put me back together as something new: a useful person. It sounds cruel, but the demands of military life were exactly what I’d needed.
Working in the military’s medical field, I also learned quite a bit – not from teachers, but from instructors who wore the uniform just as I did. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, specialty technicians, hospital administrators – they all had a crack at me. The best part was that we were equals. When a recall happened, or we went on mobility, we all reported together. We all shared the work. We wore the same hospital whites, dealt with the same patients, and even ate in the same chow hall. Rank was earned, not bought or bestowed; everyone had the same chance to get ahead and do better. I loved it.
Eventually I became a military instructor – not a teacher, you understand, because I’d never be one of them. No, I just took on the requirement of training others to do what I did. That was how the service worked. You learned, and then you passed it along. We trained in the field, not the classroom, where the real learning happened: in real life with real patients under real conditions.
In time I left the military, and while civilian life was not anything like the service, I brought enough training with me to deal with that. In the various jobs I held I was again called upon to instruct others. One company flew me around the country so I could train other employees to do what I did. I was cool with that, because I wasn’t teaching, I was sharing my experience and knowledge with people who were doing the same job.
When I retired, pursued publication and began selling books, I figured my instructing days were over. Then along came the internet and my involvement in my first online writing community. The other writers mostly talked shop in chat rooms, and I joined in when I could. Because I was a published author, other writers began asking me questions about the work and the biz, and my unconventional answers seemed to surprise them.
My kids also started school, and while keeping a stern eye on their teachers, I also got involved in giving talks to their classmates about writing. I had a blast with the kids, too. Inspiring them and opening their minds to the possibilities as well as showing them the reality of being a professional writer was great fun.
While plenty of authors teach workshops and seminars at colleges, not a lot get around to small towns and public schools, so in time word spread about me and suddenly it seemed like every public elementary school in our county wanted me to come and talk to their kids about writing. Then the middle schools started calling, and then the high schools . . .
I also got more involved in the internet writing community. Back in the early days of NetPubLand there really wasn’t a lot of practical information online about writing professionally. Some sites offered some helpful tips, but I preferred talking with real, breathing writers who were actually doing the job, not trying to teach it to anyone else.
One of my first and finest mentors, Holly Lisle, had encouraged me to look for ways as a writer to pay it forward. Talking honestly with other writers and getting some real, solid information out there seemed like the best way; I knew I was pretty good at working out writing problems, motivating others to keep at it, that sort of thing. I think because I was a self-taught writer and had developed my habits and disciplines on my own, I knew how to do some stuff that was helpful to other writers who, like me, hadn’t gotten or couldn’t afford a formal education.
I’m not sure how we began getting together to have a scheduled chat every week. It just seemed to evolve out of our conversations in the chat room. I called it the Think Tank, but I wasn’t the teacher – I was a moderator; someone to offer an opinion while keeping things on track. Then I began writing up some online workshops to post on the writing community boards, but that was only in response to some requests, and to pass along what I knew about a particular writing topic, debate my opinions with my equals in comments, and somehow figure it all out together.
Years passed, the writing community changed hands, and we parted ways. I missed it terribly, but I still kept giving talks at local schools and encouraging other writers via e-mail and the occasional chat. I guess from there it was inevitable that I’d start a blog about writing. Actually I didn’t want to; the young writers I met at my school talks and my online friends kept harassing me until I did. I took on the task of writing daily about writing, and Publishing, and everything in between, and found that I enjoyed that even more than my years in the Think Tank. I was in my element, sharing ideas and talking shop, and making it all into a more permanent, more easily accessible form of my Think Tank.
I put a couple of different workshops on the blog, but when I noticed many of my online pals complained about how dull things were when everyone went off to RWA’s National conference, I decided to show them that they could have as much fun online, and posted the first Left Behind and Loving virtual workshops on my blog. It was wicked fun, so I did the same the next summer. I invited other writers to join in, and they did, and that started spreading. Next week will be my fourth annual LB&LI, which is open to anyone on the planet to attend, and any writer to participate in by holding their own online workshops. Similar events are being held in other segments of the writing community this year, too (which I think is wonderful.)
In the forty years since that abusive teacher taught me to fear and hate her profession, I’ve learned a lot. I’m glad I’ve been able to share what I know with others, because every time I do I feel like I’ve stopped someone else from being locked in a dark closet; one made of doubt and uncertainty and ignorance. Feels very good, and absolutely right. But I also know that no matter what I do, I’ll never be a teacher.
Sorry, Mom.
