I Teach Creative Writing

Forget that I have other classes. As a high school English teacher, of course I do. Forget that I’m working on Power School, and eTUSD, and Google Classroom, all while trying to fit in some of the bells and whistles that our school purchased this year. I see you, Screencastify–I’ll get that video up soon so it can sparkle and shine up my page.

I’m not bitter. Swear. But I teach Creative Writing to high school students. It’s my major in college. I have an MFA in Fiction. Bragadocious, maybe, but I have that piece of paper with my name on it that others do not. I taught Creative Writing for years, gave it up, now I’m back trying to “teach creativity.” That’s in quotes because some say you can’t do it. Either people are creative or they are not.

I agree. 99% of people are creative and 1% aren’t. It’s that damned dentist that doesn’t want you chewing Trident gum. It’s that guy at the party who stays too long. Everyone’s gone home, dude–do the same. The 1% watched Tiger King twice and posted online about how the guy didn’t do whatever, but some woman did. Really, people? All the stuff out there in the world and you’re worried about that?

I digress.

Today was the first day of school. I talked at my students via Google Meet (pay me, you bastards–5 people will read this!) and they were so thrilled that they told me about themselves via a simple questionnaire. I asked them about books, about media, about what they know. They told me.

A girl I had a year ago listens to Eno and reads Verne and Wells–hell, yeah. To the girl who listens to Leadbelly–I got you, because earlier you wrote that you liked Kurt Cobain and Nirvana did that old Leadbelly cover on their Live album, which means you were curious and dug deeper. I. Got. You. Hunter S. Thompson? I’m all out of ether, but every time I drive past Barstow, I think of Fear and Loathing. Lana Del Rey made appearances. Anything from immediate pop culture to old school–Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine, Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver! The list went on.

This all makes me happy. This all makes me furious. I told students today that one of my goals–and it’s my main one–was to return them to their creative glories. That writing is not a pissing contest, that they have had the creativity beaten out of them by the system, and I am there to resurrect it. It may not have gone exactly like that, but it’s my fingers hitting the keys right now, so that’s how I’m going to remember it.

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. Parents–don’t let your babies grow up to be dullards. They are creative, artistic beasts that need to be fed something loud, something foul, something dangerous that might challenge them and, in turn, have them move from point A to point B.

I am only one man. You are many.

I have said.