#the admin for her school is 2/3 never actually taught a class before

[thewindsofsong]

I would love to not work someday, but at this time, my job is the only one giving raises while my partner’s job as a high school teacher in an urban area is apparently being denied a measly $800 raise because she already gets money for running clubs.

The clubs that she spends extra time each week running and organizing stuff for. The clubs that she only just started being compensated for running after doing so UNPAID for multiple years.

And people have the fucking gall to wonder why there’s a goddamn teaching shortage.

[bqstqnbruin]

Quinn Hughes Teacher AU

Hi hello I wrote a teacher AU with Quinn where this can go one of three ways: 1. this becomes a series with Quinn and Cat and we watch that happen 2. I do it where it's a different player and FMC in a teacher AU universe type of thing or 3. nothing comes of this besides this one thing

Anyway, it's nearly 1:30 am after my best friend's wedding weekend so this is being yeeted into the wild. @nicohischier I finally gave you something with a happy ending, so happy belated birthday (please let this be enough 😭)

Teacher AU series

Warnings: None

WC: 1268

________________________________

“Mr. Hughes?” Quinn hears while he’s packing up his bag for the day. He looks up from his desk, one of his students standing under the frame of the doorway, one of the posters he had hung above it just last week already starting to come down. 

“Um,” he hesitates, trying to hide the fact that he didn’t really remember which of his students this was as she walked slowly into his room. She leaned against the desk, a nervous look on her face. Join the club, kid. “Sarah, right?”

She grimaces ever so slightly, trying not to look offended. “Sienna.”

Quinn sighs, shaking his head. “Sorry, Sienna. Still trying to get names down,” he lets out a nervous laugh, Sienna just nodding her head slowly. “What can I do for you?” 

“Can we go over the quiz I took today? I don’t think I did well.”

He had to try to stifle the laugh. She had to have been in the class that took the quiz that morning. There was no way those quizzes were going to be graded before tomorrow. Quinn checks his watch, finding the stack of quizzes on his desk and stuffing them in his backpack along with his laptop. “I actually need to head out for a meeting, but can you come back tomorrow?” Sienna nods her head, a smile on her face as she says goodbye to him. 

Quinn let out a sigh, plopping down on his seat and covering his face. Today was unreasonably long, only one free period on his schedule as it is getting tied up with him trying to figure out what his ‘year long goals’ were. The only thing he could think of was to survive his first year of teaching. Thankfully, Kate helped him figure out a way to say that in a way that would please admin, but he never thought doing that would exhaust him the way he did. 

He makes his way to the faculty meeting, some of the teachers still lingering outside the library talking. He couldn’t wait until the day he was able to not stress about a meeting the way they did, leaning against the wall with what was probably a third or fourth cup of coffee as if they didn’t need to be inside. 

The powerpoint was already being projected on the screen when he walked in, almost every seat already taken at the tables the students normally used during the day. One of the only seats he saw open was next to the one person he was too nervous to sit next to: Cat Mathis. She taught in his department, had already been there teaching for a few years even though she was younger than him, and not only did he catch on to the fact that the students loved her, but that she was the kind of teacher he wished he could be. They were supposed to be sharing a class together, him teaching one of the four sections while she got the other three, but he had been too scared to ask her for help. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” He asks, his hand resting on the back of the chair next to her. She looks up from her computer, the school letterhead on her screen that one of the other teachers told him was for letters of recommendations for seniors, and smiles at him. She tells him to go ahead, his legs shaking with nerves like they did back on the first day of school. 

The meeting starts, Quinn looking around and seeing some of the other teachers taking notes, making him nervous that he should be doing the same. He looks at Cat’s computer, her gaze fixated on the screen in front of her and not on the meeting. If she could do that, why couldn’t he do the same? He pulls out his computer, figuring he could do some work while he was at it, including trying to figure out what he was supposed to be teaching when his students came in the next morning. 

A message pops up on the corner of the screen, Cat’s name appearing with it. How’ve the first few weeks been?

He lets out a sigh, trying to hide the smile that he was fighting against on his face. Exhausting.

Sounds right. Everything going ok? He knew she could see him hesitate, Quinn seeing the smile on her face turning into a worried look out of the corner of his eye. I have to head back to my room after this, come with me?

Quinn looks at her, a genuine smile on his face as he nods at her. His mind wandered the rest of the meeting, not taking in a single piece of information that he probably was going to need later. It ended before he could realize the hours was up, Cat gently resting her hand on his shoulder to snap him out of the trance he had fallen into.

They walk back in silence to her classroom on the other side of the building. Cat sits down at her desk, Quinn awkwardly standing by the door while looking up at her walls. The two of them had a lot of the same posters hanging, which made sense when he considers the fact that they teach the same thing. 

“So,” Cat breaks the silence, causing him to jump. He tries to pass it off as putting his bag down, the smirk on Cat’s face telling him she saw right through him. “What’s been going on?”

Quinn shakes his head. He felt like he barely had time to process most of the first few weeks of the school year, answering that question felt impossible. “Is it always going to be this hard?”

Cat smiles at him again, a warm feeling running through Quinn as she shakes her head. “No, you’re just finding who you are as a teacher.” Quinn cocks his eyebrow at her, leading her to laugh. “I sound like that shitty PD person from in-service. But, I’m not wrong. When I first started, Kate told me that my first year is meant for mistakes. It’s meant for finding how you want to teach, what you want to emphasize, and working out what is the best for you and your students.”

Quinn nods, sitting down. He stares at Cat for a moment, studying her face. God, she made him nervous. “You know the handbook, pretty well, right?”

Cat nods. “The AP my first year made all the new teachers practically memorize it.” 

He could feel himself getting even more nervous. “What does it say about teachers dating?”

“Each other?” He nods again, getting up and grabbing his bag. If this went the way he thought it was going to go, he needed to be able to leave as soon as possible. He could see the corners of her mouth turn up for a moment, his heart racing as he over thought that as a good sign. “As long as one isn’t in a position of power and it doesn’t interfere with their work, teachers dating each other is fine.”

“So, in theory, we could date?” 

Cat nods, biting her lip. “If we both wanted to, yes.” 

“I want to,” Quinn says, a little too fast for his liking. “If you do.”

Cat lets out another laugh. “Mr. Hughes, is this your way of asking me out?”

Quinn drops his head, feeling his cheeks getting red. “It’s going about as well as my lessons, but yes, Ms. Mathis, I’m trying to.” 

“I’d love to go out with you.”

[salemroleplayhq]

❝Every day we all become the balance of our choices – choices between love and fear, belief or despair. Optimism is our instinct to inhale while suffering.❞

MEET…

Milo Boone

Age: 30

Birthday: August 31, 1990

Gender/Pronouns: Demi Male / he/they

Hometown: Greenlake, MT

Length of time in Salem: 16 years

Occupation: Yoga Teacher / Novelist / Fortune Teller

Faceclaim: Robert Sheehan

THEIR STORY

tw: homophobia, family death

Looking at a tiny newborn baby boy and naming him Milo Rupert Amadeus Boone Carpenter is something reserved for ridiculously wealthy families. Normal people don’t give their children three middle names, but Duncan and Mindy Carpenter, in the mountains of Montana, thought it was a perfect name for their first and only child.

Milo Boone, on its own, however, is a relatively unassuming name. Anyone meeting Milo Boone, who is now a grown man living in the sketchiest area of Salem, would simply smile and nod (and probably cross the road to avoid being mugged, as one does in that part of town), and assume nothing about the man’s privileged upbringing. How could they know?

Milo Carpenter was raised by seven different nannies, all of whom he called ‘Nanny’ and nothing else. He was spoiled to hell, six tantrums a day minimum, and his parents never knew a thing about it. They never knew anything about their son at all, preferring to leave the parenting to Nanny, until one day they came home to find a scrawny eight-year-old Milo teetering in his mother’s Louboutins.

They’d never truly seen him before, but their eyes never left him after that. Before, they’d used their adorable son for photo ops, as being seen as Family Oriented helped Duncan’s political career. Unfortunately, in rural Montana in the 90s, being Family Oriented also meant being straight, white and Christian. A child showing such ‘obvious’ signs of homosexuality had to be dealt with immediately.

They got stricter. They got meaner. They got pastors and shrinks and a dude calling himself an ‘ex-gay mentor’. Milo didn’t understand any of it, or what any of it had to do with wearing his mother’s shoes, but he finally had a chance to make his parents proud of him, so he tried.

He finally understood what the problem was - or what they thought the problem was - when he was eleven. He developed a crush on a boy called Jack and discovered that his parents been right about him all along. There was something wrong with him. He did need help. So, always honest, he told them about Jack.

Everything got much worse. And when he turned 13, they sent him away.

He was told at conversion therapy camp that there were three cures for his disease: 1) Build “healthy same-sex non-sexual friendships”, 2) Become more ‘masculine’, and 3) Date girls. This didn’t feel like a problem for Milo. He’d always liked girls, and had plenty of male friends he didn’t have crushes on. And pretending to be manly just seemed like acting, which was something he’d always loved anyway.

So then why was the treatment that was supposed to last for a summer taking two years to work? He’d left the camp, started high school… he got along with his new friends, he sat and walked and talked like a ‘real man’ - he even had a girlfriend he was totally into. If he was doing all the right things, why did he keep getting distracted by cute boys in gym class? Still always honest, he told his parents about this, too.

In a last ditch effort (or more likely just to be rid of him once and for all), the Carpenters sent their son to live with Mindy’s cousin in Massachusetts. They barely knew her, and Milo had never met her, but anything was better than having a gay teenage son when Duncan was trying to run for office. So once again, they sent him away. He arrived in Salem and was greeted at the airport by the oldest woman he had ever seen, with the brightest gap-toothed smile. Her name was Dahlia, and she was the first person to make Milo feel actually loved.

She had an adorable little house in the center of town, and he helped her take care of it. She told him he wasn’t broken, and he almost believed her. They became best friends over the year they knew each other, but unfortunately that was all the time they got. He was sixteen when she died, leaving what little she had to him in her will.

The legal battle after Dahlia’s death happened while he was in a fog of grief, but when his lawyer mentioned emancipation, he woke up a little bit. Dahlia had taught him to take care of himself and others, she’d taught him to love and to live without fear. She’d let him borrow her heels, even though they were four sizes too small. He would never have been able to if he hadn’t met her, but he knew that now, he could say yes.

It worked, of course. Mindy and Duncan wanted nothing to do with Milo, and encouraged his decision to drop their last name - the first encouragement he ever got from them. He never missed a day of school, picked up acting and singing and painting and writing and decided that free was the only thing he ever wanted to be. He’s found some labels that fit him - genderfluid, demi-male, pansexual, etc - but he knows he can change them whenever he wants.

Sixteen years after arriving in Salem, he’s still living in the same adorable little house in the middle of town, although now it’s decorated all over with paintings he’s done and photos he’s taken. He’s got yoga mats and aerial silks, candles and tarot cards, a copy of the novel he wrote, and a pair of his very own Louboutins. He’s silly, and flirty, and outspoken… everything he was never allowed to be. Some people call him childish, but he doesn’t mind. Everyone should get to be a kid.

PERSONALITY

+   creative, charismatic, whimsical

-   immature, self-centered, outspoken

Milo is played ADMIN EM.

[eponymous-rose]

Ten Good Things for the weekend trip + Five Good Things for today!

1. It started hailing out of nowhere, and we were all very delighted by the weirdness of it, even having grown up in an extremely hail-prone place. Dad and I ran out to the balcony and caught handfuls of tiny hailstones, then brought them in to dump into Mom’s hands (she thought we were bringing her herbs from the little garden or something and was hilariously indignant when we just dumped ice water on her).

2. I brought cookies across the border from a very cool bakery near where I live and had been told it was all shortbread, but then some of the cookies were very very spicy cardamom??? Amazing!

3. We went to a new restaurant we’d never been to before right on the harbor and watched the sailboats come in and park. Parking a sailboat at a crowded dock sounds like the world’s most expensive game of dominoes waiting to happen, so it was awesome to see the precision involved!

4. My brother had just picked up a bunch of new sets of D&D dice and he and I messed around with them for a while, test-rolling (very important quality control) and swapping tales of DMing. He had a very cool idea for a puzzle-based boss battle that I may have to steal for my own campaign...

5. Dad has apparently been ensuring that there’s a fresh vase of cheerful-colored flowers on the living room table at all times, and the bright oranges and reds of this weekend’s offering were just stunning when the sun shone through them.

6. Leaning way out over the balcony to try to find a rainbow during a sun shower, Dad and I could only see the very end of one sticking directly out of an otherwise unassuming neighborhood. Like, yes, this particular intersection is now A RAINBOW. Very good.

7. After growing up entirely landlocked, some quite choppy water on the crossing (”choppy” as in “people were falling when they tried to get up and walk”) taught me that I’m not in fact especially prone to seasickness, which is great to know! It felt like an oddly soothing roller coaster. Bizarrely entertaining.

8. Speaking of, nobody sat next to me on the boat on either leg of the journey! Lots of room to stretch out and read a book.

9. Mom and Dad got very giggly picking out what amounted to couples’ cosplays based on what kind of wig Mom’s going to buy. They were looking at Buzzfeed rankings of the top wigs on various TV shows. Amazing.

10. The kitties were very skittish while I was gone, and I was worried I’d get home and find they’d completely reverted to their near-feral terror of humans, but the second after I walked through the door, Hector snuck slowly out to look at me... and immediately rolled over and started purring, and didn’t stop until he fell asleep that night. (Clara also came out quickly for pets and cuddles!) Awesome care while I was gone made all the difference. <333

And for today!

1. Actually had a thoroughly enjoyable conference call, for once! I was worried because everyone had already discussed all the topic ideas I was interested in, so when the conversation came around to me, I had to just make up a completely improvised topic for a seminar. But it really took off, and my co-coordinator for this particular seminar turns out to have such oddly specific expertise that she can actually be one of our panel of experts! Really cool that it worked out so well. (Also, one of my best friends got admitted to this program, and the random number generator placed her in my peer mentoring group! Very elementary school “the teacher wanted to separate us but the randomizer still put us together!” moment.)

2. After stressing all night about having to get Hector into his carrier for his vet visit today (it’s a new carrier but I couldn’t figure out the dang toploading mechanism) I got him into the carrier on the first try! In contrast, last time I had to cancel his vet appointment because, after an hour and a half, I still couldn’t get him into the carrier. (He did Super Great at the vet’s office today!)

3. Today’s lecture in class was really fun! Less than half of the class showed up (hey, they’re seniors and the quarter’s almost over), but the ones that did were really excited about the material and participated a bunch. We talked about relatively cutting-edge radar technology, too, so they got to have that glimpse into really immediate research-relevant discussions, which doesn’t happen as often as it should at the undergrad level.

4. We hired a new admin staff member to help coordinate the graduate program (she did exactly this job for fifteen years in another department, so we’re really lucky to have her), and we threw her a welcome party, complete with fresh-baked banana bread! She was really nice, and joked that now I can finally feel like I’m no longer the new kid on the block.

5. The professor in the office next to mine is finally back after flying planes for Science for the past three months! She seemed pretty stressed (now comes the fun part of “what the hell happened to all the data that looked so good at the time”), but relieved to be back. She has to go out again for three months next winter and the winter after that, though! That’s a huge time commitment. Regardless, I know she loves this stuff, and it’s so great that she’s back. Once things have calmed down a little, I’m going to suggest we start merging our research groups for occasional group meetings, since I’m already coadvising one of her postdocs and on the committee of one of her Master’s students. Collaboration!

[haeroniel-doliet]

gah another 5 am post eh fellas

fuck i really wanna do ballet. i really rarely become obsessed (if ever) with anything, but for once i’m so so so so soso wanting to do ballet. so bad. i know i might hate it bc im fucing not musical at all, so not in shape, so not comfortable or etc. but at least im 18,(wait fuck 19 now)  and not 45 trying to get in it all stiff and stuck and i think based on all the sweet positivity to adult ballet starters beginners and sure i wont perform professionally but fuck man i dont think i need that. i just want that grace and flexibility and elegance and gah itd be fabulous. i mean even now im pretending to look for turn out and walk around the house like they do in point shoes and i try fix my posture tothe advice by a ballet dancer youtuber who ive been watching so much of. i just i really wanna do it. 

saddest fucking thing is guys, that i could’ve had the chance to go to the fucking royal ballets adult absolute beginner classes. in london. i could have. fuck. u wanna know what happened? i found out about it like a month or two ago and was fucking psyched bc its one of those things that just is too good to be true. the best company in uk?? w adult classes? while im in london?? yeah id have to miss a few weeks bc. whoops i gotta go back up to do my exams,but i couldve at least done a few weeks, come back and done a few last so i’d have had the best opportunity to give this a go in the best environment and then have a kindling to go off with to other available ballets. and not start with some barely managing person in a shitty studio thing. idk. sure so i tell my parents so fuckin excited bc look! its possible! but yeah its expensive, wouldve been abt 90 pound w me being a student and id have to miss 3/10 classes. but still! thin of it gah its making me so sad happy. sad bc guess its now sold out. of fuckin course it is. i told my mom and she just was uhmm ohh i dunno i dunno, oh its adults i could do it, and thinking that maybe getting her involved would mean i have a better chance of going, dont care much for her company but if shed take it as a bonding thing hell, i’ll probably do better than her in class and minor confidence boost as well as if they all others are old old i wont be alone. and she could pass over what they learned when im up in scotland. Guess that was a fuckin mistake. she got all nervous and self concious and put it off with a we’ll see we’ll see about it im thinking. and making it a whole thing like instead of me wanting to go so bad and offering for fun that shed join me, as if im trying to pressure her into doing it and would only go along to make her feel better. uh.... fucking wrong! im so mad actually. bc of course, no matter how often i mentioned it she wouldnt take it seriously to even consider booking me in! no no of course not we’ll see. and then i check before im coming back, dreading and being right that yep. theyre fucing sold out. of course they are its such a fanstastic opportunity! my only fucking opportunity! when ever again am i going to live in london with weeks free to go participate in that? when ever again? never. theyre moving out of london this summer and fuck. just doing some research and the scottish ballet is in fucking glasgow. yes i was supposed to get there if i hadnt been so shit with studying for my exams. (sure i wouldnt be doing archery and wouldnt have all the other wonderful things i now enjoy in aberdeen but fuck its frustrating) and ofc. aberdeen seems to have: one shady dance company that offers ballet fusion. not adult ballet classes. another shady school that practices at robert gordons that have no website nothing. no info how to sign up or if they have adult classes or when its so stupid and weird. maybe ill have to contact them directly idk. sure my uni has a what seems to be a thriving dance society that i have a glitched out membership for. (its 50 pound a year and i have cerrainly not paid that) and i guess they do ballet on the side. but again from a glance around, looks its only intermediate. not beginners. dont think theres that many uni age girls who just wanna start ballet now. 

so it looks bleary. even in finland, i cant understand body parts in finnish so that might just be frustrating if i could even find a place that offers it. not that i’ll have long at all in finland. ill be there barely a month before heading back to uni and i come back holidays. if i wanted to take one of these eleven week courses, i think id have to geta fuckin liscence and a car and drive to glasgow 3 hrs both ways for a class once a week and that sjust stupid. im so fucking mad about this missed opportunity. like my muscles are itching and aching to do it. my legs want to work out in ballet positions. they just rly do. yeah maybe ill have to start doing barre at home from videos to try ease that, but its not gonna be the same and ill do it all wrong bc i have no teacher to direct me or anything. correct either. sure if i had done it and loved it i might still be mad that i have no opportunities to continue like i want to, but at least id have that expereince and could keep practicing at home based off of it.  i am genuinely upset okay. upset betrayed disappointed sad twitchy and ugh. sure tickets go on sale today to swan lake after exams. and by fuck will i go see it. and ill get all the background before it and know it inside and out before i see it (already kinda do) and i will love it. ill bemaybe more upset and more twitchy that i cant do it, that i cant be lie them and that rly sucks. i really really wish by some miracle the school would offer summer courses so that i could just, get myself after exams into one. also another frustrating thing not quite so pressing on my mind is how my dad wants me to get summer jobs, maybe even two. one here and one in finland. sure it should theoretically be easier getting it here, esp. since im 19 now and yeah. i could work in a cafe or store just to get money and have smth to put on a cv thats not 2 weeks. but i dunno i dont particularly want to, i was hoping in london i could get the most of it culturaly (considering ive been a pouting and sad whailer whos not done anything for the last two years) then again i have p much no friends here so if i did go work somewhere theres a slight chance thered be someone i get along with and could hang out w. or visit if i needa back in london. i dunno. things are weird. sure i could try get an admin job w nhs like some lady suggested but its one of those too much responsibilty things, consdiering im shit with work i kinda would prefer to do some physical job like stacking shelves in a shop bc im good at that. but thats not gonna help me in the future. money yes, but cv building or careers wise? nah. i should owrk in hospitality or smth i dunno even i can barely get thru my work to pass rn so  i dunno about job searching. im jsut a mess am i not. regardless maybe i should look if theres other ballet schoolsin london. be desperate, get a job and a ballet class going over summer and do art on the free time i guess. 

okay so fer now ive found a course for like fucking 156 pound thats a 2 day full days course that looks mad cool for having different classes to learn vocab and etc and then a bit of fucking swanlake like yooo.. best thing its in like july but thats also possibly bad bc its july 28-29 and july 30 we move out. man it could be cool tho. then they offer there as well a taster session p much every other week and then a full 8 weeks of class p near by to me. sure this is specifically taught by a man and id prefer a woman but, i guess. since its ideal timing and place. and i got wondering why thats 150 and the national ballet wouldve been abt 90 and i guess there i get concession and it wouldve been only 6 classes considering the dates they had off. i should rly ask if they do do concession bc 150 is a bit steep still. for 8 classes thats almost 20 pound for 75 mins. its kinda insane. theres probably more companies i havent looked at but there is one other thats like a drop in thing 10 pound cash each class and thats a 90 mins so it might be better. ofc. obv. fault being that its drop in so being an absolute beginner w likely a lot older adults idk how id fit in or keep up or get hte most of it. i think ill go try it once regardless. then when back in abdn ask around for taster sessions and beginner ballet. worst comes to worst i wait another 4 years till i get to a big enough city that they have a nice ballet company and somewhere i can live like an adult but also get in on adult ballet and enjoy myself. maybe my industrial placement city will have  a ballet company idk. 

all i know is that im a bit obsessed and everyone says to go for your dreams etc. and as much as i enjoy archery (slowly gonna dedicate to it) and aikido (though training can be frustrating and training with old men isnt that fun) and ice skating is another less of a dream but in the same realm as ballet. that im gonan get new skates for and give it a better try. i just think ballet could  be so fucking rad and im sad that its not so easy rn. and that my mom fucked me over. for that one course that couldve been cheap and amazing and mindchanging. to go to the ballet knowing what some of it feels like would be great. sure id love  a chance to do some after as well u know. ofc it sucks it might cost a couple hundred over summer to these hobbies and i feel iffy spending 180 on a quality waterproof jacket. sure. they spend it but, im v concientious and dont wanna spend much of their money esp cus im not making my own. i guess logically, i should put a bunch of effort to getting thru this term rly well without lies and get a sumemr job. that way, i could theoretically take loan from my parents  and pay back with summer job money w some left over to do as i like with (yeah i should save it for sensible shit but idk) also considering how nice i am my dad might not even want me to pay back. look i dunno. thats an idea. be good, be rewarded w ballet classes and an unstrained relationship w my parents, joyously move back to finland and start next term w a clean slate, hopefully more help and new determination into hobbies. maybe i wanna do 4 sports since i never did much as i was younger. tho sure, i did aikidos cousin taekwondo. ive shot a bow and arrow whenever i had a chance. ive skated since literally like 3 yrs old. and i used to take a form of dance a alot younger. sure no musicality but i think the exercises would be great for my knees and legs and butt and torso and posture. htese are fun sports since i dont like to work out. and since im not comfortable enough in myself to go swim. 

[erinjdoyle]

Writing classes

If you want to be a writer it seems like you should go take a course to learn how, that’s totally a thing that you should do, right?

Ummm….

I have taken a range of writing classes and I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, I have met other writers and improved my craft. On the other, I have wasted hours of my life on pointless readings, listened to people who are really only out to stroke their own egos, and even been reduced to tears. So, I figured I would tell you about the classes I have taken and what I thought was good or bad about them.

 The first writing class I tried was a correspondence course where you were sent a set of readings and then had to so an assignment based on them. This course put emphasis on writing to be published, on writing to be paid, but it otherwise lacked focus. It started out talking about magazine articles, and slowly made its way through radio and short stories, and then children’s books, and novels, then screenplays, and then I just stopped bothering with it. I dropped it because I had a clear goal in my writing that wasn’t being addressed but such a broad array of topics.

It was too tightly focused on writing products instead of writing beautiful things, things which could inspire or challenge, things that were acts of self-expression. This is fine, if you want to be published no matter what and don’t care about quality or artistic merit. But I think you risk writing things that are too formulaic, with cardboard cut-out characters that no one can actually care about. It might be marketable but that doesn’t mean it’s actually good (Fifty Shades of Grey, for example).

 The second writing course was the cheapest and by far the worst. This was a night class held at a local high school. The problem with this is that anyone can teach a community education program. The guy teaching the class was a local play write of no significance, not someone in publishing or someone who had won critical acclaim, not someone who had studied writing (except for the same correspondence course I had already dropped, as it turned out). What’s the problem with him being a play write? Normally nothing but in this case, everyone in the class wanted to write novels. Writing a play is very different and his experience wasn’t suited. He explained that he had actually wanted to teach a screenwriting class and that the admin people had made him widen the scope to recruit more students- he didn’t want to teach what he was teaching and it showed.

Instead of course readings, he liked to read his own work aloud to the class and then tell us why it was effective. Listening to your teacher read their own unpublished work aloud really doesn’t count as a course reading- students don’t benefit from being told why their teacher is amazing or from seeing just one style of work. The more diverse the written material they are exposed to, the better writers they will be because they will have had many teachers. Having diverse course readings also increases the chances that each student will find something that really speaks to them, we are all different after all.

The third problem was he that was, technically speaking, an arsehole.

He explained that we were to hand in a new piece of writing every week. He said it shouldn’t be hard to do because we were all adults then he looked at me, clearly the youngest in the class, and with a less than friendly tone said: “those of us that aren’t sixteen anyway.” He had decided that I was a child and that I wouldn’t meet his expectations- even if I had been sixteen at the time (I was in my twenties) that would have been a jerk move. A person’s age may give you an idea of the issues they will talk about in their writing, but not the quality of it or how hard they are willing to work to improve, or the validity of their work.

So, we handed our first pieces in for him to read. I had written about a woman learning that the child she have given up for adoption years earlier wanted to meet her.

The following week, he started the class with a big speech about how the quality of the pieces handed in had varied but been generally disappointing, and how one was so bad that all he had written on it was “read a book” and then he laughed. Following this harsh and public criticism of an unidentified person’s piece, the work was handed back and we were each asked to read our work allowed to the class. It came to my turn, and he told everyone that mine was the terrible one that he mentioned before and that they were to pay attention to find the problems and learn what not to do. I swallowed the humiliation and read it. When I finished, he mocked my choice to say that the child in the story was only fifteen years old when she decided she wanted to meet her biological mother, because he didn’t think it was realistic. He mocked my description of the mother’s fear of the letter she received and how she didn’t open until several days after it came. This was not fun, but the thing that made it even harder to endure was that every word I had written was true- to him, it was a meaningless piece of crap scribbled out by a child he didn’t want in his class, to me it was the story of how I meet my sister. I told him it was a true story and he didn’t care. Even after he had reduced me to tears he kept going with his criticism. I gathered my things and left. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had kept going after I was gone.

I am going to assume everyone who reads this can see why mocking a student for being young and then ruthlessly tearing their creative work apart in front of the entire class on their first try isn’t a good thing.

The other issue with his method in general was that he was telling the class what to think about pieces before they read them. It’s better to let people think for themselves first and to then guide discussion.

 The third writing course I took was at university and it was everything the other courses weren’t. It was a class in writing creative non-fiction (a nice tight focus after the first course I never finished) and it was taught by someone who had a doctorate in writing, who had publications and multiple prestigious awards under her belt. And, you know, she was nice. The experience was so good I ended up taking every course she offered.

The classes were interesting and entertaining. I remember learning that it was okay for me to use informal language, even swear words (this was a major revelation to me). Some of what she talked about seemed a little wishy-washy, but I was already a dyed in the wool scientist by that point and anything that was abstract and unsupported by numerical data was at risk of seeming that way, so she was forgiven.

We were not given firmly defined writing assignments. Each week we were given at least two pages of ideas to work with, and had to pick just one. This allowed for each person to find something that worked for them. We were also given a range of things to read. We were given a collection of short stories and poems and were recommended novels, and we could pick and choose what we wanted to read from this assortment of material. Some of it was connected to writing assignments (e.g. read this poem, then write a response to it), and others were not so closely connected but were still excellent pieces of writing that fitted on with the general topic. We were given a lot to work with so that we could find our own path within the course.

The other part of the course was a weekly workshop. We were randomly assigned to workshop groups of less than twenty people each, and we stayed with this group for the entire course. This allowed us to get to know each other and establish trust, which is important for any writing workshop. We would email everyone the piece we were going to bring to the workshop in advance so they could read it and think about it (some people don’t like reading stuff in advance but it was nice to have the opportunity). Then, we would sit in a circle and take turns reading our work aloud. Everyone would then offer constructive feedback. I’m going to say that again, CONSTRUCTIVE feedback. We would pair any criticism with a positive, e.g. “I like the way… but I’m not sure that this part…” This approach was super helpful, and I learned a lot while also making some great friends.

However, there is a potential problem with workshops. If one person is a bit in love with themselves, they can be a disruptive or negative influence. Like, people who waste everyone’s time by bringing things to share but refusing to listen to any feedback, because they have already decided their piece is perfect. Or, they start acting like the teacher, stating their opinion like it is the only right one and acting like everyone needs their permission in some way. Because of these problems, it is best of there is a teacher/leader who can guide the conversation a bit. But, the teacher may not do this well, which means you may have to find some way to insulate yourself from the disruptive person.

 Okay, so what have I learned from all of this?

1.      Choose your writing courses with care. They are not created equal.

2.      If a course isn’t helping you, quit.

3.      You learn more from a good workshop group than you do from an average teacher.

4.      Someone may have an opinion about your work, but it is up to you to decide whether or not they are right.