A Beacon of Light

Back in the Classroom

Kevin Carroll

“It is the supreme art of the teacher 
to awaken joy in 
creative expression and knowledge.”  
Albert Einstein

My good friend and mentor, Preston Moss, shared a thought with me back in 1975 when I was teaching at Saint Augustine’s College in the Bahamas. Here it is, almost fifty years later, and his words are as pertinent as the day he spoke them. He said, “Ya can’t give wat ya ain’t got.”

As I approach the age of 70, which I’ve been told is the new 50, there is one thing I have to share with others for which I am tremendously grateful: my passion for writing. I retired from full-time teaching in 2015. I found myself back in the classroom as an emergency long-term sub from 2019 to 2021. Beginning this Tuesday, October 24th, I’ll be back in the classroom once again — teaching two adult education courses in Santa Clara.

A few months back, a woman from the Santa Clara Adult Education office asked if I could teach an adult education course in poetry. I assured her I could. A few weeks later, she asked if I’d be interested in also teaching a course in creative writing. I told her I’d be happy to do so. I am now officially employed, on a part-time basis, by the Santa Clara Unified School District.

The creative writing course is offered one day a week, on Tuesdays from 10:00 A.M. to noon, for eight weeks. The poetry course will be held on Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 P.M. This course is also for eight weeks. The courses will be offered again in early 2024.

While I don’t miss teaching, and I’m not really in need of the additional income, I am excited about the opportunity to share my passion for writing — both creative writing and poetry writing. 

Everyone has a story to tell. Author Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Some might mistakenly believe that anything they could write has probably already been written. While there may be some truth to this, I will remind my students that no one else has experienced or sees the world exactly as they do, so no one else can possibly tell the stories they have to share. 

Many people, it seems, have a strong desire to write, but feel inadequate in their writing skills. I urge them to just write. What we put down on paper does not have to be perfect. In fact, rarely, if ever, is a first draft anywhere near perfect. The important thing is to get our ideas on paper, because then we have the opportunity to make improvements to what we’ve written. We cannot edit a blank page.

As we embark on this writing journey together, I can only hope that I awaken joy in the creative expression and knowledge of my students. 

3 responses to “Back in the Classroom”

  1. elsas@fix.net Avatar
    elsas@fix.net

    i am older than you and i taught at the conservation corps for years and with folks with learning disabilities. creative writing in high school was one of my favorite classes. the university of arizona told me though that i had to trade off the love of that for better grades in senior english. ok. darn. i still write for myself. in that class i remember writing about the affect of the colors in the spectrum on me and what i saw in them. i still remember that. today i would love to do something similar. but right now it comes out :” the shape of god” in my life. i will get to that eventually. i did go to burlingame high school and the catholic grammar schools in san francisco and san mateo. so i am familiar with the bay area. writing was such a touch stone piece of my life. when my folks moved to canada for three years for daddy’s job and i went to arizona, my mother very carefully threw away the stuff i had written and kept in the bottom drawer of my dresser. made me very sad. and angry. she did not understand i wrote to put my heart on paper sometimes. so yes teach them how to speak their feelings, to speak the wonders that emanate from their souls. i found that some people did lack the ability to imagine . this when i was teaching reading comprehension at cuesta college. i would love to attempt also a book of ignatian spirituality with attention to development of the visual imagination in prayer. so many ideas messing around in my head. some one will achieve those hopefully. ps i do love reading your missives. thank you. ellen dayton

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    1. Kevin Carroll Avatar
      Kevin Carroll

      Thank you for your heartfelt response, Ellen. Having a parent (or anyone else) throw away, intentionally or inadvertently, things I’d written reminds me of the John Steinbeck short story “Tularecito.” If you’ve never read it, check it out. We take pride in what we’ve created. I quoted a line from Steinbeck’s story in the introduction to my book “The Ambassador of 38th Avenue”: “After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he really existed.”

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      1. elsas1bfbc1bb79 Avatar
        elsas1bfbc1bb79

        i hope my response got through. i did say that i worked in salinas near his home that they turned into a mini museum and i bought a cook book there. then down here on the central coast, i had a biology teach who was obsessed with steinbecks cannery row stories and the marine science portrayed . i may have read his short story, but i will check. can’t hurt to re read. thanks. ellen dayton

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