Friday, March 18, 2011

pre-institute

We had our pre-institute tonight, getting ready for our writing project's summer institute in June. It's the end of a busy week, a Friday evening, and there we were: 19 fellows and 6 coaches (fellows from previous summer institutes), and 3 directors--all spending four hours together writing, sharing our writing, and preparing for the summer to come. It's amazing. I was tired; I'm sure the teachers were, too. But there was this energy there that was just amazing. Karen's prompt at the beginning of the evening came from Guys Write for Guys Read--and encouraged us to consider what powers we would have if we were a superhero. I think, after this evening, I would answer differently than I did at the beginning of the evening. Then, I said I would have powers to stop time for everyone else so that I could get more done. Now, I think I'd want the power these teachers have. These teachers, teachers who want to spend four weeks of their summer together learning more about writing, have superpowers. They energize me on a Friday night after a busy week. And I know from experience, that I will feel the same energy working with them during the summer. I will leave each day, after 8 hours of writing and sharing writing and working on ideas for teaching writing, with surprising energy when I should feel tired. I was reminded of that tonight. What a privilege it is to work with these engaged teachers.

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