the night before our first set of teaching workshops this summer, i was sitting on the cold hard floor of a high school gym in nevada internally (and externally) panicking about the happenings of the following day. what if my lesson bored my students to tears? what if it ran too long or too short? what if six glue sticks wasn’t enough for impatiently creative minds and what if they learned nothing or, even worse, vocalized such frustrations to their friends and their parents?
the last time i taught prior to spokes was also prior to the pandemic, in a preschool classroom of about twenty 4-year-olds at an elementary school in culver city, CA (the same school that my mom happened to attend when she was little!). i was in the same classroom with the same set of students for about two years before widespread safer-at-home orders shut our afterschool program down, a grievously abrupt end to what had been one of the most gratifying and eye-opening parts of my high school experience.
creations by future urban planners!
jumping back into teaching during this trip has reminded me how much i adore it.
i won’t ever forget the familiar faces of room 3, the wildly open minds of young children navigating the space between toddlerhood and childhood, absorbing countless bits of new information every day and imagining, exploring, leaning on each other and on me for support. early educational settings can be the most beautiful example of human collaboration, compromise, creativity - and it’s such a privilege to have a room full of students open up their hearts to your influence.
parth does the pre-workshop boogie
glue stick run.
becoming accustomed to the transitory lifestyle of spokes has been an adjustment in many ways, perhaps even moreso on the front of education than in the context of housing, sleeping arrangements, etc. it’s difficult to feel like we are actually having much of an impact in one day-long set of workshops, its difficult to feel like our temporary presence in a given city can provide any degree of long-term comfort to students that desire support beyond our limited capability. it’s incredibly difficult to say bye so soon.
that said, i won’t ever forget the faces of the students at today’s workshop in columbus, or the faces of the students at our workshops in ely, pleasant grove, steamboat springs, newton, kansas city, st. louis, and farmington. the stories they told, the cities they designed, the stories they told about the cities they designed, the questions they asked and the hugs that they asked for. i’ve loved every second, even the crazy ones, and i can only hope that some of them will remember the spokes.
happy to report that last night’s teaching preparation was much less panicky than the first, there were no academia-induced tears from my students today, and i managed to buy more glue sticks. AND we discovered an almond kringle that was gifted to us at our last workshop and had somehow gotten smashed into the teaching supply box???
our day post-teaching consisted of some errands, a culver’s run, a delicious pizza dinner with our wonderful hosts and their neighbors, cat cuddles (with skittles, who has recently assumed the coveted title of aja’s favorite furry friend), calls with loved ones, and echoes of laughs that are the evening timestamp of a day well spent.
penultimate blog post done! thanks for tuning in :’)
aja
(re: a reader’s question, my name is pronounced just like the continent! or the steely dan album if you know what’s up)
skittles!
