Letting Go of Fear (in Our 10th Year!)

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Howdy, Campers! Happy Poetry Friday! (poem and the link to PF is below)

Before we begin, there's good news for those of you who want to win a terrific book: We’ve extended the deadline to enter our latest book giveaway of a signed copy of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by editor and author Cheryl B. Klein. You’ll find giveaway instructions in Carmela’sMarch 29 post. The new deadline is now Tuesday, May 7, in part to honor the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week. Click here to find out how to enter.

And now...happy 10th blogiversary, fellow Teaching Authors! In particular, happy blogiversary to our founder and fearless leader, Carmela Martino, who has steered the TA ship across the years. I cannot begin to thank you for hauling me on deck just before we set sail. My world is so much richer for it!

pretty amazing

In honor of this memorable milestone, all current and several former Teaching Authors are sharing our favorite posts.  I've decided to go all the way back to 2009. Here's my post on our first topic, "How I Became a Teaching Author."  At the end of that post I conclude that teaching is generosity.

I've become more and more comfortable being honest with our readers. Today I know that being honest is a form of generosity.  (And to be honest, I was scared straight out of my jimmy-jammies writing that post.)

In this safe space, we've often shared fears about writing or teaching (find some of those posts here); I felt like an imposter as a writer and as a teacher for so long, fear was a second skin.

But this year something's changed. 

I must be like the Cowardly Lion at the end of the movie, The Wizard of Oz. As he is awarded a medal for courage, he becomes brave. After I was given an outstanding instructor award by the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, I believed that I actually was a good instructor, rather than pretending to be one.

Here is a not-yet-good-enough draft of a poem about how I so often felt:

TEACH
by April Halprin Wayland

I cannot do this today.

I sit on the stool in this empty classroom.

How dare I believe I can teach.

Am I a teacher?

Do other teachers feel this way--

slightly flu-ish, wanting to puke, even?

They should bring in someone else,

someone with a sword, maybe.

I wonder if my second grade teacher felt this way.

I wonder if all my teachers felt this way.

I almost fall off my stool 

imagining that.

But as I began teaching the first quarter of this year, here's what I wrote:
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AGAIN
by April Halprin Wayland
.
Again she drives in early

unloads books

hooks up her laptop to the screen

puts one sheet of lavender paper

on each desk

puts the perfectly blooming hyacinth

just so on the edge of her desk

tapes her favorite quote on the front door

and two more inside her classroom.
.

Again she takes off running shoes

puts on high heels

brushes her hair

fills her water bottle

settles in.

She breathes for a moment,

closing her eyes.

Then she looks at the clock,

opens the door

and...
begins.

poems (c) 2019 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved. (Even on that crummy draft.)

One sign on my classroom door

As we celebrate 10 years of this blog, I celebrated 20 years as an instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

I am no longer afraid to walk through that door. (And, though the fear has diminished, I still sweat writing this blog!  Perhaps that fear will disappear by our 20th blogiversary.)

my wonderful first class of 2019 holding some of their favorite picture books
both photos taken by our guest speaker, author Alexis O'Neill

Thank you for teaching me so much, readers. 

Happy Ramadan, Passover and/or Easter to all!

 And thank you, Amy at The Poem Farm for hosting!

Posted by April Halprin Wayland with help from Eli, the licky, lanky dog with the operatic bark.

Eli consulting Bear