letter to my 8th grade writing class

Writers of 410,

I want you to know that I’m thinking about what you were saying in class today and am taking it to heart. Your thoughts and your words are powerful. Remember that. They are even more powerful when you send them out for others to read or gaze at or listen to or dance to. The world needs the messages you have to send.

Many of you expressed feelings of rejection, betrayal, and anger towards the school and many of the adults in the building. When you expressed those feelings I felt heartbroken, and I wonder if in any way I have let you down and how I can do better by you.

I think I said last week that my favorite book series is A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. These books echo the ways that children are let down and put into danger by the greed, selfishness, and neglect of adults in their lives. In the second book, Snicket writes of a man named Mr. Poe: 

He was kindhearted, but it is not enough in this world to be kindhearted, especially if you are responsible for keeping children out of danger.

I’d like to think of myself as kindhearted and well intentioned, but those traits can’t keep you from the violence in our world. I can’t stop the violence of these systems that are so much bigger than me and I can’t stop the violence that people inflict on each other.

My hope for this class is that by talking and writing and learning together, we can make a space for each other where, maybe just for one hour a day, we are safe from violence.

I asked to teach this writing class. Even though I am a first year teacher, even though I’ve never been taught how to teach a writing class, I wanted to, because I see this incredible, giant potential in all of you. I see your potential to make a safe space in this classroom that can spread to other classrooms and even to other buildings when you move onto high school next year. I am so, so sorry that you feel like the adults in this building don’t want to be here for you. I am here for you, and I chose to be.

When we were discussing and writing together last week, I felt so hopeful and excited. I’ve been happily spending my free time dreaming what we could do: a field trip to the Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen to view an exhibit put together by youth; surveying the students and teachers at Otis to come up with ways to improve our school; a publication of written works to share with friends, family, and other writers in the building. 

But this week has been different. This week been frustrating for me. When you talk over each other and over me, when you insult each other and me, when you throw the clipboards and notebooks I spent my own money on at each other, I feel disrespected and hurt. I don’t feel disrespected as an authority figure as much as I feel disrespected as a fellow learner and thinker and writer and individual in this classroom with you. 

The fact that I have good intentions, on its own, is not enough to stop you from feeling angry. And that isn’t my goal. I see your anger, I hear that you feel rejected, and I understand that I can’t or shouldn’t make that go away. 

But if we come together, if we learn to respect each other when we speak and listen, we can use our feelings of anger and rejection and turn them into something powerful. If we honor the shared agreements we came up with and signed, we can stop the emotional and physical violence of the world from coming into this classroom and create a positive space that will spread outward.

But we need to work together. It shouldn’t just be my ideas running the class. Please take time to write ideas or suggestions of things that we can do, things that I can do, to make school a safer place for you. I really, truly want to take your thoughts and feelings into consideration, and I hope that by doing so I can help you feel respected and valued. 

Thank you,

Mr. E