30. Megan
Chapter 30
Megan
The third day of batched cooked lunches is the point where my enthusiasm for baked squash and grain bowls wears thin. All of my classes are acting up, a clammy looking child coughed right in my face, and I'm on day two of my period. Five o’clock cannot come soon enough.
“What feeling is the author trying to evoke in this piece?” I ask row upon row of bored faces. Some of my classes have a real love of English, but unfortunately not this one. “Or perhaps ask, what feelings does it bring up for you?”
“Boring,” comes a voice from the back.
“OK, this isn’t working. Let’s try something different.”
I pull up the video Ollie showed me, the one of the geese at sunset. It takes seconds to find it, given how many more times I watched it after he left my bed last night. Setting it to full-screen on our class board, I shut off the lights, which always gets everyone's attention.
“Pens down everybody. There's something I want to show you.”
There’s a shuffle of bums on seats as a few kids sit up straight when I hit play. They don’t normally get to watch videos in my classroom. There are a few grunts and groans, but eventually the room falls silent as they watch.
“What’s this got to do with English, Miss? Hasn’t got any words,” Maya huffs.
“We’re not thinking about words right now. I'm going to play it a second time, and I want you to write down how it makes you feel.”
They watch again, the only sound is the music from the screen and their pens scratching against their notebooks.
“OK, tell me some of the things that came up for you. Just shout them out.” I rarely let my classes speak over each other, but the invitation brings on a chorus of replies.
‘Calm, relaxed, peaceful, hopeful’ , are just a few of the words thrown at me with only one ‘bored’ in the mix that I can hear. It's an improvement, and I'll take it.
“Great stuff. Now tell me, what is it about this video that makes you feel this way?”
It takes a few minutes for us to get into the swing of it, but soon everyone is contributing to the discussion. We have such a strict curriculum to follow, mostly focused on ensuring high exam results, and it's a long time since I've allowed myself to veer off plan and let my teaching flow.
“If videos can make you feel this way, so can other forms of media, including writing. What you think you’re watching is a beautiful, organic moment between two people in love. And while it is beautiful, it’s also staged.”
There’s an uproar of language I choose to overlook.
“Watch again,” I say, pressing play for the third time. “They’ve filmed it on their drone camera, picked the perfect spot, waited for the sunset—”
“How did they get the geese to fly past then, Miss?” Jackson calls out.
“This is a known spot for watching geese migrate. They timed it well, but it was all coordinated to tell a story, to make you, the viewer, feel something.”
According to my lesson plan, they’re meant to find a piece of poetry they connect with and interpret the author’s intent, but I want to keep this momentum going.
“For your homework, I want you each to choose a song that makes you feel something. Listen to it a few times, write out the lyrics, and then I want 500 words on how it makes you feel.”
The school bell rings, and my class pack up their belongings and hurry to their next lesson.
“This was ace, Miss,” Robyn says on her way out, and with that one sentence, I think maybe today isn’t a write-off after all.