A briefer entry today.
This is university Induction — or Welcome — Week.
I guess this is my seventeeth.
The COVID year, we weren’t in person. But for most of the others I’ve been among a group of Creative Writing professors and tutors greeting a new cohort. In a classroom or lecture theatre. Sometimes with cake and beer and wine. Sometimes just with tea, coffee and a PowerPoint.
This start is always exciting.
After doing no teaching over the summer, there’s the shock of speaking to a lot students.
There’s also the real delight of meeting people familiar from writing samples, personal statements, Teams interviews, and logistical emails.
But you have to be very careful with how you talk about what’s ahead for them.
One thing I remind myself — and this goes for the early classes of this term as well as induction day itself — is not to make this mistake —
Don’t preempt the experience of any student.
Don’t pretend to know them before you know them.
It is a temptation to come across as all-wise and say stuff like, By Week Seven you’ll all be feeling X… or Come the end of term you’ll probably have realised Y…
There are rhythms and patterns to Creative Writing classes. Certain euphorias and sloughs do tend to repeat themselves, year after year.
But not always.
Each workshop is unique.
And each gathering of each workshop is unique.
Have one student out of twelve be absent and the group dynamic changes — unpredictably, sometimes weirdly.
One week, everyone is relaxed and laughing; the next, hardly anyone wants to speak.
Sometimes I think this is a manifestation of the national mood, whatever that might happen to be.
Or the weather.
It’s a mistake for any teacher, just because a student reminds them of a previous student — because they seem to have the same dilemma, or be caught at the same impasse — it’s wrong to assume that the same advice or suggestion that worked once before will work for them.
Similarly, it’s a mistake to take away any of the surprises or bewilderments or or revelations or shocks that belong to a group of students — that they own and deserve — by saying you’ll be surprised/bewildered/shocked like this.
Being right in your all-wise predictions would be even worse than being wrong. You’ll make the students feel unoriginal, or boring to you.
And that’s the last thing they are.
They are, always, entirely their own new thing.
I love this advice. Honestly I feel it can be applied to much of life, but particularly experiences involving repetition. I always take this approach to students but also to clients in art-therapy, never trying to predict or presume. Preempting reactions can be stifling, reductive and means that an individual or unique expression never gets heard.
This reminds me of advice given to writers to refrain from dictating what their readers should think or feel. Each reader is a distinct individual, with different experiences, thoughts and opinions. They will decide for themselves (subconsciously or otherwise) when reading a text – as with everything else they perceive.