Practice What You Teach

I just rang in 2011:  the year that will mark my fifth as a writing teacher.  And the year, I also hope, when I will begin to practice growing and preparing sustainable food.  What do the two have in common?   

The answer begins with a story from my first year of graduate school.  I still laugh to remember the composition director whose office I ran into crying on my first week as a teacher.  His bald head and circular glasses seemed comical, despite his stare as he said:  “You won’t damage them, Lauren.  Just do stuff, and they’ll do stuff too.”  This may be a slightly altered paraphrase of how he suggested I handle the teaching of my first English 101 class, but the basic premise was that I shouldn’t be afraid to fail, and that if I tried things, they’d respond and we'd both learn something.

But that first year, what I was really attempting to do was know stuff.  In fact, know everything.  Just like the phrase “fake it ‘till you make it” which also seemed to be on everyone’s tongues that first quarter of graduate school, it reeked of blindness.  I didn’t want to be fake, and I couldn’t possibly know everything.  What did I know? 

I realized quickly, that I knew how to learn and that I could practice techniques and research right along with my students in order to teach them better.  I could troubleshoot, look things up I didn’t know, select course topics that I wanted to know more about.  In short, I could teach them how to learn, and teach them what a learning person does:  practice. 

Enter English 102, the statewide community college course wherein students learn research writing based on their teacher’s chosen theme.  My love of cooking and interest in learning to garden, paired with my desire to know what I am eating, led me to try my first course theme, The Politics of Eating in America, last January.  I had no idea the popularity the class would have at Edmonds and North Seattle Community Colleges.  Students were, and are, incredibly excited to take the class, and they often come with ready knowledge about food, and what it takes to prepare and grow it.  They have suggested books and brainstormed ideas of a garden space for students on campus; one is even in the process of organizing a public garden space in the city of Edmonds that can raise produce for the local food banks.  In short, the class has started to cause some interesting change, in students, on campus, and in myself. 

Instead of thinking of ways to get my students excited about the course topics, they have gotten me energized! I have been diving into new lifestyle changes, and a new approach to food that inspires my course topics.  This blog is my attempt to chronicle this journey as I try to practice what I teach, and continue to sow change.  

Below is my first batch of zucchini-ginger bread and butter chips, a canning project I'll blog more about later.  Right now, it needs to marinate :).