Aside from our flawless taste in beauty products, and our affinity for yellow diamonds, famed lyricist Rihanna and I have one more thing in common: “We found love in a hopeless place.”
Anyone reading this blog needs no exposition nor evidence that this school year is among the most challenging, frustrating, and likely depressing times in a teacher’s career. Knowing the tsunami of confusion, anxiety, and work that was heading our way did not really alleviate the pain of the first weeks of class. We worked tirelessly and tediously. In the midst of the new year, we did everything we could to hold our rafts together and ride out the crashing waves.
Last spring, a colleague and I chose a new summer reading book for our incoming students. Given the uncertainty and dangers of our community, we knew we had to procure a choice that we could legally distribute free digital copies to our students. Of course, this is possible if you pick old enough novels — they aren’t protected by the same copyright laws as more modern works.
I took the opportunity to advocate for one of my personal literary heroes: Jules Verne. Verne created worlds that only exist in an imagination.
In college, I became enamored with his fantastical imagery. The unforgettable adventures include elephant racing, underwater picnics, forests of mushrooms taller than redwoods, and the uncanny 1840s prediction that the rocket landing on the moon would leave Earth from Florida.
He evokes the power of literature: he can make readers see and experience things that actually do not (yet?) exist.
When selecting the novel, I tried to check my personal bias and also suggest Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking Glass. My colleague helped decide and she actually made the stronger case for Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. It was a bit ironic that she ended up persuading me because one time I flew to France for my birthday so that I could ride a hot-air balloon, tour a submarine, and beg a Frenchman to let me ride the elephant merry-go-round clearly made for children in Paris. I did this all in homage to one of my favorite writers.
Given my history with the novelist, it should come as no surprise that I was very much looking forward to one of my already favorite components of the assignment: artwork based on imagery inside the novel.
As the summer crawled along, it became increasingly obvious that the time-honored tradition of rousing the students to the front of the room holding their art up and sheepishly explaining their projects was in jeopardy. It had always been fun because the freshmen are equal parts enthusiastic and timid. Making the students blush while I shower accolades and inquire deeply was probably an inadvertent bonding technique uniting the kids against their over-zealous nerdy teacher.
Now, settling into remote learning, I was simply operating logistically: my first challenge was to teach 14-year-olds to scan artwork with a smartphone. Next, I had to teach them how to upload said scan over unfamiliar software systems.
It wasn’t for several days into the new year that I even realized these adolescents would miss out on the tortured right of passage. In the tsunami preparations, this reality hadn’t truly hit.
But when I opened the submissions, and started to inspect them, a wave of conflicting emotions began to pour over me. For one, I was sad. Sad I wasn’t going to make a kid blush in front of the room with my earnest praise and inquisition — sad I wasn’t going to decorate my room with this work just in time for the parents to visit on the second Thursday of the school year. But next, I was inspired and elated. These students brought the imagination of one of my literary heroes to life. These students worked tirelessly to impress me – not knowing if we’d even come to school this year. Submission after submission, I was stopping, zooming in, gasping, and taking pictures to share with other teachers.
The morning I opened these submissions, I couldn’t wait to share them over my virtual classroom. I scrapped part of my lesson for the day, and launched into a slide show of sea monsters, lava, and eccentric travelers. Starting with these gorgeous submissions from Aspyn, Colin and Ty:
As my peer, Rihanna, sang “Shine a light through an open door… It’s the way I’m feeling; I just can’t deny.”
One by one, I called on the students to chat with me about their art. I paid compliments where they were due, and wondered about inspiration. I gushed over more art, and felt an excitement for these new students in a way I had thought we lost back last March.
Ava, Elijah, and Skye provided my next stunning examples:
It is easy to miss the moments. It is easy to beat ourselves up and work too hard. But all is not lost. As overly sentimental as it sounds, our human spirit is alive and well. We can have joy, growth and inspiration… even in a hopeless place.
What sparkling moments have brought you joy in these first weeks of remote learning?
Leave a comment below!
James King
James King is a high school teacher in Glendale Union High School District. He is the newspaper advisor, speech and debate coach and teaches AP English Language and Composition as well as Journalism. James is a graduate of the University of Central Florida. In his time in Florida, he worked as a substitute teacher for 5 years while simultaneously working in corporate training. In his free time, James enjoys reading, musical theatre, sand volleyball, comic books, and often-vapid reality TV programs.
Comments 3
Hi James! I love that you are finding the gems among all the stress. Today one of my brand new kindergarten students shared her harp with me and play Twinkle Twinkle Little star during our Zoom class. It was absolutely marvelous!
That is SUCH a great book for sparking imagination! We started the school year by setting some big goals, and having my freshmen think ten years into the future to envision themselves at 24 or 25. I love seeing their dreams put down onto paper and the advice they’d give themselves and other future freshmen.
I love this and I needed this today. You are creating relationships with students in an often hopeless place of screens and clicks. In other words, you are shining bright like a diamond. I am finding joy in the weekly journal submissions from my students. They are a window into the kids’ lives that a screen does not provide.