Everybody is afraid of Virginia Woolf

This morning mom had another encounter with the dreaded 12th grade. She was invited by one of the literature teachers, to talk about something related to Virginia Woolf and feminism. In case you missed it, here it is again: 12th graders and Virginia Woolf. Yeah.

Mom studied, read, and overall loves literature, but, she does not have the faintest idea on how to teach it. Blunt as always, and expecting the worst from her beloved class, she opened the class with a brutally honest confession of her lack of expertise. Sly as always, however, she went on to identify with students and offered to share her experience from her undergraduate literature classes and her ways of coping with the endless lectures and hundreds of pages about stories and characters that felt light years away from her reality.

To her great surprise, this unusual introduction seemed to do the trick. The students were curious. When mom revealed her 'secret weapon', she thought she caught some disappointed looks and was afraid she lost them. Nevertheless, she kept going. She talked about reading literature as a metaphor, and about her strategy to always find a connection between a work of literature and her own personal and social reality. She then asked students to identify some major themes from the works they had read recently. After a 30-second wait, she saw one timid hand rising. What a relief!

What happened next exceeded all her expectations. That first hand was followed by another, and then another, and before she knew it students were discussing among themselves with her as a facilitator. Great ideas were tossed in the air, definitions of equality, stereotypes and caricatures of feminism, negative impact, reverse discrimination, redefinition of feminist goals, and more, not articulated this way, of course, but uttered nevertheless.

Does this mean all was rosy? Of course not, this is the 12th grade we're talking about, after all! There were the usual 'class tourists', mostly occupying the last rows, sleeping, working on homework for other classes, or reading the newspaper, even. Mom doesn't like to give up, but doesn't know what to do with this type of student at this point. What do you do with someone who just doesn't care? Mom decided to let them be, but take no BS in terms of interruptions. To be spiritually absent from class is a personal choice, after all. But to make it impossible for anyone else to participate and benefit, that's another story and that's where mom drew the line.

Surprisingly, she was successful. WHY she was successful, however, is a different story. She thinks that it's probably because she's still a novelty in the school. Also, being a guest teacher helps in a way. She doesn't have to deal with the students on a daily basis and they don't have to deal with her. That seems to promote a climate of tolerance on both sides. Lastly, the students that do benefit from these arrangement, the ones who want to participate, are grateful for being allowed to do so, and that's where mom draws her strength from. They are SO worth it.