Living Up To Its Name

In a past journal I wrote about those wicked smart undergraduates in my poetry workshop.

They're even smarter than I'd realized.

In that class, Harvard truly lives up to its name.

In my years as a teacher, a student comes along every five years or so that’s a genius. They’re beyond the smartest in the class, beyond honors and AP, beyond the valedictorians (interestingly, they are never the valedictorian). In another orbit; playing a game with which we are not familiar.

Again, once very five years. Here are mine: Kate Guarna, Sam Cocar, Katie Williams. Three in fifteen years.

In my poetry class, all thirteen kids are of that ilk. All of them.

It's kind of amazing to watch. We'll be working on our poems, and one of them will raise their hand and say something perfect, articulate, penetrating, insightful. I'll be struggling with the vagaries of my own mind, trying to figure out what is happening in the poem and what needs to be done, unable to put it into words, and then this 19 year old will raise her hand and cut right to the heart of the matter, and speak improved sentences that sound like they were written by Obama.

It's pretty amazing. I guess I should be a little intimidated and embarrassed by all this. These kids are half my age and they routinely kick my intellectual ass. And my insecure past would predict that I should just shrink and cower in such an environment.

But it's actually pretty cool. Once you accept that you're NOT like them, and you'll NEVER be like them, then all that's left is to enjoy and appreciate. It's exciting to walk into class and know that every single comment is going to expand your mind in some way (and even more so with my professor). We've all been in classes where someone will begin to speak, we'll register their relative ignorance, and then think to ourselves "well, my mind won't be going anywhere for a little while, I'll just have to wait this person out before we get moving again." That never happens in my poetry workshop.

When I was studying for the GRE, I needed a little extra tutoring, but I made the mistake of going to a cheap company and a low-priced tutor. Within minutes of sitting down with her, I realized that I knew much more than she did, even in math. I felt like the four walls of her tiny office were closing in on me, and I knew for the next 89 minutes or so, my brain wouldn't be going anywhere. It was a real claustrophobia. (I'm making a case FOR tracking in schools here, since honors kids who are in low-level classes might feel this way. And it doesn't feel good).

But when I'm in the poetry workshop class, the walls fall away immediately. My brain has too many places to go, and it's trying to get there too fast. Not only do the walls fall away, but the student comments blow the roof right off the building too. And it's a big, heavy building.