A Serious Education by Joshua

A Serious Education by Joshua - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

Music is playing from this laptop—the same hip-hop study music my students and I listen to during independent reading time. The very best time of my day. It’s when I get to read Thomas Merton and gain some perspective from all the dreadful, stressful, overwhelming minutiae of day-to-day teaching. There is no full explanation for the soulful wear and tear of eighty teenagers that demand and deserve meaningful relationships. My heart breaks at what I cannot provide, day to day, but Thomas Merton and hip hop study music help. A classroom full of teenagers discovering the pleasure of reading helps.

I have taught middle school English to teenagers in the Mississippi Delta for a year and a half. Before this I taught middle school English to adults at a community college in Pensacola Florida for a year and a half. The things I have learned I cannot contain in thought.

I can't help but reflect on the purpose of the classroom. Who do I want to be as a teacher? Why am I in front of these hard, staring eyes? What am I suppose to give?

As honestly as I can say: I want to give practical help to serious people. I want to write textbooks that are affordable, concise, useful, and poetic and profound. I want to write science fiction novels with protagonists of color that my students would love to read. I want to write poetry that is honest and impactful. I want to help poets and science fiction writers create their own poetry and their own science fiction. I want to help recent divorcees discover a new and meaningful future for themselves. I want to help big gruff and tough veterans discover writing as a way to process and appreciate their experiences. I want to help children discover hope in words when their morphing, growing, changing teenage brains dismay and belittle everything around them. I want to help new fathers and mothers take control of their own lives and futures. I want to be where serious people are, and I want to write things that serious people want to hear.