It's probably no surprise that my favorite subjects in school all had to do with reading and writing. But I wasn't always an A student in every subject. In fourth grade, having transferred midyear to a new school, my science teacher sent a note home saying, "Lauren doesn't seem to have a clue as to what is going on." And later, in high school, I had one teacher tell me I'd never go anywhere in life because I couldn't take proper instruction. A guidance instructor at the same school, dismayed that I'd only applied to three colleges, all of them good colleges, urged me to apply as well to a rinky-dink school. Clearly, he didn't believe I'd get into any of the places I'd chosen. Well, I refused to apply to the rinky-dink school, telling him if I couldn't get into any of my three choices I didn't want to go anywhere. I got into all three, proving that sometimes people's low opinions of you are just plain wrong. And I would add that one of life's best revenges against naysayers is to go on to be a success in your chosen field. My chosen field is writing, and while I may not have the commercial success of a Meg Cabot or the literary success of an Ian McEwan, I've had seven books published since 2003 with at least five more due out in 2008, making me feel successful enough, even if it's just me thinking that.
But returning to my favorite subject in school, I did indeed love English and I used to get a thrill at the idea that homework could actually consist of reading great books, and I loved writing. I often credit my eighth-grade English teacher with first putting the idea in my head that I could be a writer. We'd been given an assignment to write stories that had to use three seemingly disparate elements - a priest, a nun and a camel - and I wrote a steamy little tale ala
The Thorn Birds. My teacher liked it so much, he had me read it to the class three days straight, which probably made them get sick of it but did succeed in making me believe that maybe I had stories to tell that people would want to hear. Later, in high school, a school where I was mostly classified as a loser because I refused to fit neatly into any one defined group, I took the one Creative Writing course they offered. Again, a teacher fell in love with one of my stories, only in this instance she was the one who read it aloud. My classmates loved that story and it was only after she'd read it that the teacher revealed I was the writer. I could feel thirty heads swivel in my direction. Did it make me instantly popular? No. But every time we were in that class, every time I ran into any of those thirty kids outside of that class, I would catch them looking at me differently. Apparently, they were seeing something more in me than what they'd seen before.
Writing, reading - no one will ever convince me you can be good at the former if you haven't done a lot of the latter. And my favorite reading experience in school? Discovering Shakespeare. It wasn't a direct journey. In high school, we read one or two plays, but it was tough to get excited about anything that came with so many footnotes. Then, in college, I signed up for Shakespeare I. The professor was just plain awful. He'd come to class and just read from his podium - he was not a good reader - doing nothing to bring the material to life. It was only by some grace of the universe that I'd signed up for Shakespeare II before realizing how much I wasn't enjoying myself and then being too lazy to drop the second class. Good thing. My new professor was one of those magical teachers everyone should encounter at least once during their education. He made it all come alive. He made me see
Merchant of Venice clearly - not as an anti-Semitic play, but rather as the indictment of the prejudiced Europe of its time that it is. He made me want to sit at a table with Falstaff and Hal, raising a tankard to England. And when he closed out
The Tempest with its Epilogue, "But release me from my bands, With the help of your good hands...As you from crimes would pardon'd be/Let your indulgence set me free" - Shakespeare's plea for the audience to put their hands together and clap him into retirement - I listened with tears in my eyes, sad that the plays and the class and my time with this magificent teacher were at an end, happy that I'd been granted the opportunity to take the journey. My love of Shakespeare didn't end there - indeed, I used money from my first paycheck upon graduation to purchase the one-volume complete set of
The Globe Shakespeare that I still have twenty-four years later. My love for the Bard has never wavered and I fully accept Harold Bloom's thesis that Shakespeare invented us.
So what are the morals of my ramblings today:
1) you don't have to accept other people's low opinion of your potential
2) a good teacher can make all the difference in the world
And now I've gassed on enough for one day, so if you will let your indulgence set me free, I'll simply close with the questions:
WHAT COURSES DID YOU LOVE/HATE IN SCHOOL AND WHY?
Posts
