Do More of That
Oh, we stepped into it yesterday with the turning of the page of Of Mice and Men and the word in the first sentence at the top of page 20. And that "stepping," as I so delicately call it, was no accident. We've taught this book many times. We think we know this book. We did that. No accident. Full stop. Learning stopped. Talking went on, class went on, the audio tape kept playing, but the white women and the black kids (so Braveanna told us) stopped thinking about anything else but the word on the page and the sound of it still hanging in the air. "I understand," I said to B. when she waited after class to tell us The Truth We White Women Teachers Are Late To Learn. "No, you don't," she replied. And I was schooled. Ashamed. Stricken. Enlightened. Energized. Curious. Ready to go at it again. Hey Teachers, Hey, Ms. Fey! You all believe that there are a million ways to teach and a million ways to learn, right? That we are all sponges, some of