Each year at my school, certain stellar students are initiated into the Williams Scholars Program, an honor that comes with a sum of money to be earmarked for some off-campus academic pursuit. At the annual assembly celebrating new Williams Scholars, it is customary for a faculty member to speak about his or her own academic pursuits. That year, I was that faculty member. Here's my speech, which I delivered two weeks ago before a full house of students, faculty, and parents.
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Every year, Williams Scholars use their scholarships to pursue their academic passions. But the pursuit of academic passions doesn't have to stop just because you've grown up. Today I want to tell you about my own experience, not as a teacher but as a student.
Because I'm an English teacher, everyone assumes I've always been good at English. But that's not entirely true. It's true that I've always enjoyed reading, and that I've always had a passion for stories dating back to the ones my parents read me when I was little. And I like to think I've always been a decent writer too. But I also took plenty of lumps in English over the years. When I was in high school, I did so poorly in English 10 Honors that I was demoted to a regular-level class for my junior year, which at the time was the biggest slap in the face I could imagine. English was supposed to be my best subject. And if I wasn't good at that, well then what was I good at?
(I blamed my teacher at the time, by the way, but it’s clear to me now that it was my own fault. My work just wasn’t up to an honors standard.)
In my last two years of high school I recovered somewhat, and when I got to college, I majored in English, along with a third of my classmates. Kenyon College, which has always been known for its writing program, attracted some of the best young writers in the country. It was humbling to be in class with peers who were clearly more accomplished than I was.
I made it through college with mostly B’s, but my love of literature was well intact, and a couple years after I graduated, I first tried my hand at teaching.
Once I became an English teacher, I developed a serious case of imposter syndrome. That’s the feeling that you don’t really deserve to be in the position you’re in. I didn't feel like an avowed expert in my field; I still felt like the high school sophomore who got a C+ in English, or the college student who struggled to finish every assigned reading, and earned a steady string of average grades. But I kept on teaching anyway, while doing my own reading and writing on the side.
Five years into my teaching career, I heard about a graduate program geared towards English teachers, called the Bread Loaf School of English, a division of Middlebury College in Vermont. Students took intensive courses for four summers, and after that, earned their Master's Degree in English Literature. (Among the program's famous alumni are Upper School English teacher Liz Hopkins, who had graduated before I got there, and former Middle School Head Brandon Mollet who was a "senior" when I was a "freshman." We met once at a party. We would meet again two years later in 2012 when I started working at Boys' Latin.)
Anyway, I applied to Bread Loaf and was accepted, and in the summer of 2011, I drove myself deep into the Green Mountains of Vermont to read and study with fellow nerds from all over the country. I was excited. But once I got there, I felt that same old feeling from undergrad and from high school: everyone was brilliant except for me.
My first graduate class – on Romantic Poetry – intimidated me fiercely. It seemed like everyone in class already knew everything about Byron, and Keats, and Shelley. One of my classmates had all of William Blake’s poems committed to memory, or so it seemed to me. Surely, I couldn’t compete.
Imagine for a second that you are just starting to get into lifting weights. Now picture entering a gym in which everyone is effortlessly benching three hundred pounds. The experience I’m describing is the book worm equivalent.
I wasn’t sure I belonged, but what could I do? I wasn’t about to turn around and head back home. Bread Loaf already had my tuition money. And besides, the program had accepted me, hadn’t they? Someone must have seen my potential.
Because I'm an English teacher, everyone assumes I've always been good at English. But that's not entirely true. It's true that I've always enjoyed reading, and that I've always had a passion for stories dating back to the ones my parents read me when I was little. And I like to think I've always been a decent writer too. But I also took plenty of lumps in English over the years. When I was in high school, I did so poorly in English 10 Honors that I was demoted to a regular-level class for my junior year, which at the time was the biggest slap in the face I could imagine. English was supposed to be my best subject. And if I wasn't good at that, well then what was I good at?
(I blamed my teacher at the time, by the way, but it’s clear to me now that it was my own fault. My work just wasn’t up to an honors standard.)
In my last two years of high school I recovered somewhat, and when I got to college, I majored in English, along with a third of my classmates. Kenyon College, which has always been known for its writing program, attracted some of the best young writers in the country. It was humbling to be in class with peers who were clearly more accomplished than I was.
I made it through college with mostly B’s, but my love of literature was well intact, and a couple years after I graduated, I first tried my hand at teaching.
Once I became an English teacher, I developed a serious case of imposter syndrome. That’s the feeling that you don’t really deserve to be in the position you’re in. I didn't feel like an avowed expert in my field; I still felt like the high school sophomore who got a C+ in English, or the college student who struggled to finish every assigned reading, and earned a steady string of average grades. But I kept on teaching anyway, while doing my own reading and writing on the side.
Five years into my teaching career, I heard about a graduate program geared towards English teachers, called the Bread Loaf School of English, a division of Middlebury College in Vermont. Students took intensive courses for four summers, and after that, earned their Master's Degree in English Literature. (Among the program's famous alumni are Upper School English teacher Liz Hopkins, who had graduated before I got there, and former Middle School Head Brandon Mollet who was a "senior" when I was a "freshman." We met once at a party. We would meet again two years later in 2012 when I started working at Boys' Latin.)
Anyway, I applied to Bread Loaf and was accepted, and in the summer of 2011, I drove myself deep into the Green Mountains of Vermont to read and study with fellow nerds from all over the country. I was excited. But once I got there, I felt that same old feeling from undergrad and from high school: everyone was brilliant except for me.
My first graduate class – on Romantic Poetry – intimidated me fiercely. It seemed like everyone in class already knew everything about Byron, and Keats, and Shelley. One of my classmates had all of William Blake’s poems committed to memory, or so it seemed to me. Surely, I couldn’t compete.
Imagine for a second that you are just starting to get into lifting weights. Now picture entering a gym in which everyone is effortlessly benching three hundred pounds. The experience I’m describing is the book worm equivalent.
I wasn’t sure I belonged, but what could I do? I wasn’t about to turn around and head back home. Bread Loaf already had my tuition money. And besides, the program had accepted me, hadn’t they? Someone must have seen my potential.
So I started grinding. I pushed myself to speak up in class, even when I didn’t want to. I gave myself pep talks, and forced myself to believe that my insights about poetry were just as good as anyone else’s.
I got a B on my first paper, on William Wordsworth’s “The Prologue,” and the old doubts started to creep in. A B was ok, but how did that compare to what my classmates got? Did teachers even give grades lower than a B in grad school, where everyone but me seemed to be a super genius?
If one of my students had come to me in my situation, I would have advised him to meet with his teacher, so that’s exactly what I did. In anticipation of my final paper for the class, I had a conference with my professor, a brilliant scholar from a prestigious university in London, and she gave me a few tips as well as a little encouragement.
I kept reading, I kept writing. During the week leading up to my final paper, I practically lived in the Middlebury College Graduate Lounge, where for every page written I rewarded myself with a slice of mediocre pizza. I finally submitted my work - a fifteen-page paper about three poems, written by three obscure Romantic poets. I ordered one last celebratory slice of pizza and I waited.
Now comes the part of the story where I have to brag a little bit. Apologies in advance. In high school, it can be common to share your grade with a friend. In grad school, they tend to be top secret. But then, I'm not in grad school any more.
I got an A+ on the paper. An A+! In all of college, high school, maybe even middle school, I don't recall getting a straight A on a paper. I once got an A+ on a story I wrote when I was in fourth grade about a snorkeling trip with my family. That's how long it had been.
As it turned out, it was the first of a bunch of A's I earned over four summers at Bread Loaf, though admittedly the only A+. The grades were nice of course, and so was the small scholarship I received from the school for my good grades. But the best result of my experience was the confidence it helped me to build. Everyone needs validation, whether they're in lower school or in graduate school. The validation I received at Bread Loaf helped me to feel I was a worthy student, and a worthy teacher.
That fall, I walked back into my classroom with my head held high. Maybe I was pretty good at this English stuff after all.
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| Bread Loaf School of English: a beautiful campus in the Green Mountains of Vermont, perfect for lounging in an Adirondack chair with a cup of coffee and a book of poetry. It intimidated the hell out of me. |
