While the focus of Writing As Healing has been largely centered on writing as healing for students, one of my guests, Shamari Reid, a Heinemann author and professor at NYU, speaks to us about the necessity of writing as healing for teachers.
The essential question of Reid’s new book, Humans Who Teach: A Guide for Centering Love, Justice, and Liberation in Schools, is how can we center love in our work as teachers. And not just teachers as a monolithic label or as perpetrators of a system, but as humans who walk into classrooms and engage with our hearts and our humanity in order to engage with the hearts and humanity of our students. As humans who elect to teach, we must first take care of ourselves, understanding who we are in a process Reid calls “getting closer to yourself” with a dozen acts of radical self-care.
One of those acts is writing our way into physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Reid suggests that teachers must elevate their personal writing voice and close their classroom door as an act of self love. Teachers are storytellers, and we need time and space to tell the story of how we love and how we engage with students. As we write and reflect on our own stories of love and teaching, we might ask: in what ways does my teaching promote the physical, emotional, and spiritual growth of my students?
How do I speak up about issues of marginalization and injustices? How do I center counternarratives in my curriculum? How do I stay informed about the challenges my students and their communities face? How do I commit to my own unlearning of oppressive beliefs and actions?
Be sure to tune in on May 2 for my conversation with Shamari. You can also listen to a Heinemann On the Podcast with Shamari as well as treat yourself to his Water for Teacher: Sips with Shamari Reid.
How Can I Practice Writing As Healing In My Classroom?
Teachers, grab your writing journal, close your classroom door, and settle in to get close to yourself. Set a timer for 20 minutes, and for this time, suspend notifications, email checks, or student demands. Just give yourself the gift of time and space and writing. Choose one of the free writes below and write from your heart and your humanity.
Prompt 1
In his book Storytelling Animal, John Gottschall says, “A life story is a “personal myth” about who we are deep down – where we come from, how we got this way, and what it all means. Our life stories are who we are. They are our identity.” If, as John Gottschall says, our life stories are our identity, what do your life stories say about who you are? What kinds of stories make up your life story? What stories make up your teaching life story?
Prompt 2
Anthropologists have found evidence of storytelling in every known culture. In fact, scientist believe humans have told stories for as long as they have had the ability to speak, making meaning of their lives for thousands of years before they learned to read or write. Why do you think it is important for teachers to tell their stories? Why is the act of storytelling so important in the field of teaching? How does the act of storytelling engage your students?
Prompt 3
Jonathon Adler, an associate professor of psychology whose field of study is narrative psychology, says, “Life is incredibly complex, and in order to hold onto our experience, we need to make meaning out of it. The way we do that is by structuring our lives into stories.” Do you see your life as a “story?” Why or why not? How does structuring our lives into stories help us make meaning from it? Do you see your teaching life as a story? How would structuring your teaching life as a story help you make meaning from it?