Welcome! I’m writing about my creative growth in hopes of making this blog an inspirational magnet. I believe this: Everything I need, I already have. And maybe, so do you.
It takes guts to birth a personal essay that’s truly personal. Oh, mucking around in open-minded self-examination can get very intense. But there’s a magic in surrendering to the moment. It’s one of the reasons I blog (the posts are like mini-essays) -- and, teach.
August 27, 2009 6:35 PM
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Some of my courses only cover essay writing. Others, like my summer “Journalism Basics” class, gave New School students a chance to try their hand at it once or twice. This group seemed particularly moved by the format; I was amazed -- and humbled -- by their stories.
First though, a word about the New School. It’s a special environment because credit and non-credit students are thrown in one pot. This creative strategy mixes together people of varying ages with tremendously diverse backgrounds and writing skills. The result? Amazing classroom energy. Rock drummer, social worker, scientist, executive, secretary, retired prison guard, paralegal, dancer, chef, stay-at-home mom, documentary filmmaker, teacher, singer, photojournalist, restaurant manager, waiter, waitress -- these are just some of the folks that I’ve had the privilege of knowing through the semesters. When I’m with them and we’re really going at it in one of the West Village classrooms with the door closed, I often feel like I’m inside of a New York heartbeat.
This summer, we took on the personal essay assignment towards the end of the semester. By this time, we knew each other pretty well. A few students said that they cried and cried as they worked through their ideas and feelings. Even though non-credit students are not required to do homework, several pushed through multiple rewrites. At last, it was time to read the final versions of their essays out loud. There were laughs, tears. And thoughtful silences. I was particularly struck by one fact: Of the 11 students who wrote essays, six of them chose to focus on their fathers.
One of the great things about having this blog is that the students’ mountain-moving efforts don’t have to disappear into dusty old desk drawers. They have me! In the end, three students decided to publish their first-ever personal essays on this blog. Two of them are doing it anonymously and the minute I introduce them, you might understand why. So, here we go...
This writer is a 41-year-old options trader who is now independently wealthy. He has quit his job and says he’s on a search for himself. When he read his essay, we got very quiet. Many of us said that
we could totally relate:
Andrea Deierlein, 31, is a liberal
arts major at the New School and
also holding down a job. She’s
originally from Germany. Her essay
made us teary:
A Son Accepts Who His Father Is -- And, Isn’t
Sad Little Girl, Big Happy Smile
Three and a half years ago, Ms. Anonymous, 33, left her native Switzerland to work in New York City. This is her first English-language writing class. Her tale presented some information that was new to most of us:
Coffee, Tea or...Cocaine?
Well, I think you can see why I’m proud. Here we have two international students and a Wall Street dude who was exploring his feelings in a way so new to him that he might as well have landed in a foreign country. As you can tell from these stories, the New School crowd is all about self-expression and having a voice. We learned how to do it this summer by taking some risks. It was quite an education. For everyone. Including me.
