The kid who moved and talked and performed far more slowly than anyone else turned out to be the one child who really seemed to know himself thoroughly. He also lived with a depressed father, and that slowed down his concepts of what was possible. I hooked him into career mentoring ideas which he ended up rejecting, explaining that his parents would never approve them. The truth is, we don't know. This is a ripe point at which to ask the child to go deeper within. Even children tell stories about their parents, often shifting the responsibility there rather than reaching for their dreams.
The two girls who wanted to do a report on Sijourner Truth were stalled. I asked them what they wanted to write about for their term paper and neither had a word to say. As it turns out, and information only possible to me after a lot of creative questioning, both of these girls were besotted by Truth because she spoke up for herself. Still, their projects lacked creative fuel and both paper and computer screen lay empty of thought, empty of energy. What worked here was to align the girls with a friend of mine who teaches African American history at the University of Washington. The girls, both 14, were awed as I made the phone call to the University of Washington's Quintard Taylor from the little portable where we did our work. They giggled and blushed as I handed the phone to one of them, and after she talked to my friend, the next one. The project began to take on real life and real pulse through this outreach.
At South Seattle Community College. I taught English to high school drop-outs through the Career Link Academy. We played with music. I put the kids in a circle, which many of them resented horribly but which brought out an honesty which facing the teacher exclusively never does. I asked the kids to keep journals and to follow their dreams. Most of them dreamed of going into real estate and becoming professional basketball players. It's all good, but none of this takes wing without steady application and effort and I'd guess none of them will ever play pro ball. It seemed to me that they could all go deeper into themselves to find out what really nourishes their soul. The most telling detail of teaching was this: I liked to give presentations on creative discipline, especially because I was raising a 5 year-old five days a week by myself and because I know an awful lot about the discipline of writing and the discipline of creative movement. I asked all 17 of my students: how do you begin your day? Not a single one seemed to spend a single moment in solitude or in discipline. They raced to the phone. They raced to the computer. They grumbled at their moms for waking them up. The jumped out of bed, panicking, threw on clothes, grabbed a soda and bolted their little brothers in the car just in time for the little brothers to be just a little bit late to school.
