Presenting at the Colorado Language Arts Society annual conference

This is not the post I started to write yesterday about my morning run.  THAT one is about half-way done, but I’m scrapping it in favor of writing about what I did AFTER the run.  I want to write this because I want a record what I did on March 6, 2010, long after this exact date fades into the fog of memory.

Saturday morning started with a run, but the 5-mile morning run was a warm-up exercise for the rest of the day.  I went out at 6:15 in order to get a few miles in before I had to get myself dressed and organized to head to south Denver for a presentation at the Inverness Hotel.  Since I don’t dress up often, this process probably took a lot longer than it would for regular people.  But I digress; the Colorado Language Arts Society was holding their Regional Spring Conference and I was on the books as a co-presenter with my favorite teacher of all time, Tim Hillmer.

Here’s a picture of us at the conference, looking totally professional and beautifully coiffed:

At the conference, me (Lara) and Tim

Tim was my 6^th and 7^th grade Language Arts teacher.  I was 11 years old in 1984 and it was his first year teaching (I had no idea, all adults look old to kids and I figured he was old too).  My family life was turning upside down after a horrible incident of domestic violence, and my parents were going through a hideous divorce that dragged our family through the entire gamut of the legal system.  Meanwhile, Tim was navigating the hell of being a first-year teacher in a basement classroom with a crazy shop teacher that liked to tell “female jokes”.  After three weeks of school the 8^th period class had an uprising.  They stood on their chairs and yelled “We’re going to get you fired!”  That was his impetus for throwing out the worksheets and starting us on a curriculum of creative writing that changed the way I learned and wrote. I wrote 10 or 12 stories from various perspectives and genres, and played with the format of poetry.  I adored writing stories.  When my family life was tumultuous and I could barely function in school, I went to his class and wrote.  Writing kept me anchored to the “here and now”, when life all around me was falling apart.

When I left 7^th grade we lost contact. And then 25 years later, I saw his name in the Daily Camera, our local newspaper.  He was going to be the keynote speaker for a Relay for Life Cancer Rally at Monarch High School because he has prostate cancer.  I emailed him, he wrote back, and we met for coffee shortly thereafter.  Through many conversations and cups of coffee, we meandered our way back to those two years that we were in class together and started “studying” the teacher-student relationship.

That’s the basis for the presentation we gave yesterday.  We used our teacher-student relationship as a way of illustrating the usefulness of putting ONE teacher-student relationship “under the microscope and examining what works, what doesn’t work, and what strategies might be tried”.  We emphasized that it isn’t realistic for middle or high school teachers to try to study all 150 students that blaze through their classroom each year, but that there is merit in looking at one or two students and figuring out how they look at giving feedback, how they can encourage more writing, and most importantly, how they can build trust, the most essential piece of all.

We each read a few original pieces we’ve written, and wove the written essays/stories into the narrative.  We jumped through time here and there, offering memories from 25+ years ago, lessons learned since then, and then spoke about the present time.  I thought I was going to be nervous because I don’t normally care for public speaking, but it actually wasn’t bad at all.  Tim and I practiced our presentation several times, and even used our spouses as our first “live audience”.  We’ve talked so much about the material, and examined it in such minute detail, that I was not so much worried about forgetting something as I was about talking too much and going over on time.

When I was a kid, Tim Hillmer created a safe place in school for me to write.  I became a writer under his guidance.  I left school, grew up, had kids, and did a lot of living.  He left the school where we met, had kids, wrote two books (The Hookmen and Ravenhill), and continued as a teacher.  His health took a turn for the worse and he stopped writing.  As we were reconnecting he asked if I was still writing; I told him about this blog.  He told me that I was the basis of two characters in his book Ravenhill, and that our time in the classroom together solidified how he now teaches writing.  Our friendship and connection deepened, and as we discussed writing a memoir about our parallel lives during those pivotal two years, I started opening up even more as a writer.  He wanted to write, but something was always in the way.  Now, maybe as a part of the process of preparing for this presentation, he is ready to delve into writing again.  At the conference yesterday he honored me deeply by saying “This has come full-circle.  I’m writing now, again, because of you.”  The teacher teaches the student, the student teaches the teacher.  Full circle.  The circle of life.

Thoughts are still swirling in my head about this.  It was a fabulous experience, presenting to a group of Language Arts teachers about my favorite subject with my favorite teacher.  I am in utter awe of the work these teachers do, and the curiosity they bring to this conference in order to share ideas and wisdom.  To have been a part of that was an utter joy and privilege.  Thank you, Colorado Language Arts Society, for allowing me to be a part of your conference, and THANK YOU to each and every teacher that shows up, day after day, ready to teach.