Tag Archives: writing

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Leadership as Servitude

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As I’ve mentioned once before, I help with a Writer’s Workshop for middle school students. It’s rewarding work. And I am blessed to be able to work with these young people so often. This past Friday we were finishing up our acrostic name poems. We work with them in the school’s library. The volunteers are waiting for the students as they come in and so we watch them group off to the several library tables. Most of the time, this is done down strict gender lines. This Friday was no different. The girls giggled into their respective corners. And the guys guffawed into theirs.

I like to change up who I work with so I can start to get a feel for tailoring instruction methods to different groups of students. This week, I targeted the boys’ table full of the class clowns. Two of them weren’t even finished with the rough drafts of their acrostics. The third was rather above and beyond where he needed to be. I sat down and introduced myself and then waited. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of these kids if I tried to force feed it. So I sat there and watched how they interacted, trying to catch on to their inside jokes and get a feel for their slang and junior high jargon.

After a couple of minutes, I had a rough sketch of how they interacted as a group, what made them tick as individuals and what was holding them back, and then I started instructing. Boy number one, the most creative of the group, was held back by his need to be the class clown, which he mostly achieved by self-deprecating humor. I know how that is. But when I showed him that his poetry could involve things like noises or slang, he immediately took a new liking to it.

Boy number two was mainly held back by his lack of will. All he needed was a few reminders to keep working, and he was fine. Boy number three needed someone to buffer the disruptions from the other two or else he got distracted.

As I have more interactions with people in which I am in some kind of position of authority, I am becoming more and more convinced that I cannot help them unless I actively work against the formality of that position. Leadership as servitude is a very powerful thing.

I’m interested; do you find that it is easier to lead when you are attempting to serve others?

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Script It

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My college does this really cool thing where they go and teach middle schoolers about writing. So every Friday they graciously let me go spend time with 12 and 13-year-olds. I think mostly I have very little business being around children. I’m not a very good disciplinarian, and I like talking to them more than I like teaching them. But whether or not the students get anything out of it, I love hanging out with them.

Yesterday was our first day of this year, and so we spent our first lesson doing introductions. Introductions are interesting things. As adults, we’ve figured out how to finagle the system. Growing up should really be called “growing better at avoiding meaningful interactions with other people.” When we introduce ourselves, we use a script. When you ask my name, I will say Spencer, maybe Spencer Smith, but never Spencer James Smith. When you ask me what I do, I will answer student but never how I sometimes sit in my apartment eating Rice Crispies and watching marathons of The Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. And when you ask me how I’m doing, I will always say good. Even if it’s not.

Twelve-year-olds haven’t figured that script out yet. They still value things like creativity and individuality. Certainly, by the end of the year they will be much more scripted, but for now, they are pretty honest. Funny thing is, though, that their educators only push them more and more towards the script. As part of the introductions, each student in our class was asked to write a brief bio, the contents of which had been determined for them – a couple words to describe themselves, their likes, their dislikes, their fears, and their hopes. Amazingly, though, even given physical scripts, the students were themselves.

They talked about fearing robot uprisings, being hurt in football, and losing loved ones. They talked about loving school and hating school. They talked about their dislike of the difficulty of dieting. And they talked about being adopted, their compassion for famine in Africa, and moving to a new country. And I learned all of these things from a 30-second scripted introduction.

I have a friend who is obsessed with being genuine and another who is obsessed with innocence. I laugh at them when we are together because they think they are arguing when they are actually agreeing. Innocence allows us to be genuine. As we learn more about the world, we also learn that it sometimes makes people uncomfortable when we are completely honest.  And so we stop being honest and genuine. And we start saying things like “My name is Spencer. I am from Springboro, Ohio and I am 20 years old. I like ice cream, pizza, and reading. I dislike exercising, peas, and textbooks. I fear snakes. I hope that one day I will graduate. And one day I would like to visit Egypt.” Who’s the twelve-year-old now?

Weekend Bonus*:

Someone said she sought someone
Per positions plagued perilously,
Ergo ego  economically
Now new inquiries inside.
Commonly commenting
Ego
Responded, “I am Spencer.”

*I’m going to try and do the same assignment that we give the students each week just for fun. This week’s: acrostics.

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Writing to God

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I think I started to get semi-serious about writing right around the time that I started to get semi-serious about girls. If you’ve ever gotten semi-serious about girls, you know it’s a complicated matter. It motivates you to do things like dress better, play sports, and pretend that you have to shave. The problem with getting semi-serious about girls, though, is that you very rarely finish anything. You write a little bit, then cry a little bit, write a little bit more, talk to a girl, cry some more, write, sleep, dream about girls, pretend to shave…. and nothing ever gets done. And it’s just a hassle.

I tell you all of this because what I really want to say is that I started to get semi-serious about writing because I wanted people to like me. I thought if I wrote my moody pre-teenage feelings poetically enough on my Xanga people would say “Ooh, he’s moody and poetic” and then they would immediately associate me with other moody and poetic people like Johnny Depp and John Mayer.

Moody and Poetic Teenage Writing

Here is some moody and poetic teenage writing.

Over the years, writing and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship. He helped me get a girlfriend in high school. And then I didn’t talk to him for a while. But then he selflessly got me into college, and I started hanging out with him again. Then he made me into a hipster, and I couldn’t forgive him for a while. The thing is, though, that I’ve never really been fair to writing. I’ve been using him for ulterior motives even before I knew what that word meant.

One night, when writing and I were on the outs, I went on a run because I was feeling kind of alone, and when you are feeling alone and you and writing are on the outs, there isn’t much else to do but to run. And while I was running, I was kind of talking to God because God is easy to talk to when there aren’t people around and the night is dark and you are in a golf course. While I was running and being with God, I realized that writing should be a little bit like talking to God. When you talk to God, it’s kind of hard to be selfish. Being selfish with God is a bit like meeting the president and asking him why they served cold food at your school that morning. It’s just not something you do. Instead, when you are talking to God, you start to realize all of the things you care about and all the people you care about. That’s a really beautiful thing, and it dawned on me that night while running and talking to God, that writing should be beautiful in that way.

So I’m making a commitment. Writing should be like talking to God.

The title of this site is “Spencer Writes,” but it’s only that because it’s cute and catchy. What I really want it to say is “Spencer Writes About People He Loves” because there really isn’t anything else worth writing about.