You Can't Teach Poise

About a year ago I walked out of the auditorium at my school into the bright May sunshine. I had just finished watching the eighth grade deliver their World Congress speeches at our annual symposium. In groups of 12-17, they had researched topics connected to global concerns in the areas of Environment, Human Rights, Energy, and Health.

I happened to run into one of the student's parents as they waited for their child.

"You can't teach poise!" I said, and gave them a knowing look. They smiled back with a we're-so-proud-of-our-daughter look they had every right to express.

But this week, as I watch my students prepare for this year's World Congress that takes place next week, I am struck by the fact that they have developed poise.

My students have grown more confident, but I'm not sure I actually taught them how to do it. They have developed it within themselves.

Some things happen suddenly.

Others happen gradually.

(My friend Ben reminded me of that lately).

My students have poise, sure. But how could I be responsible? Next year, they will suddenly become high schoolers...but they will only be two months older than they are in June. Their growth into the mindset, and framework, and expectations of high school will be gradual.

This week I connected with two of my former students. One is a freshman in college, the other a high school senior.

The former of the two sent me one of his recent rhetoric papers. His topic? "The Prospect of Presidential Iconic Photography." The student's paper was tremendous because he looked deeply, tenderly, into the nature of our own perceptions of power and emotion. He didn't simply analyze trends and push to make correlations. He looked forward to the future to identify where we're going and how we might endeavor to think differently about our collective memory of our leaders and icons in a future where images can be so tainted and misperceived....but so, too, can our leaders and icons.

The other student sat in with his youngest sister during Grandparents and Special Friends Day. He spoke to me about the importance of schools in inciting change. "Mr. McDonough, just think about the position a school is in to mobilize people...the human capital is immeasurable, but so is the opportunity with transportation and adults to guide students to seize opportunity! Schools are the places that will change the world. They have to be."

How did I become who I am? I look in the mirror and I wonder who the man staring back at me really is.

These realizations have come to them gradually. Just as my own realizations have slowly dawned on me.

You can't teach poise, but you grow to have it by watching others and by having the confidence to take a risk. Poise happens both gradually and suddenly...we're thrust into the spotlight and poise is SUDDENLY demanded of us, or we practice and rehearse like my students do.

My students are delivering speeches next week. And they will have poise, but they will also have the opportunity to arrest the attention of their audience. They will speak, collectively, for thirty minutes. But for their individual two minutes at the microphone, they can do anything they want...they can make every member of the audience feel ANYTHING, and they'll do it with words, and they'll do it with poise.

I can't wait to let myself feel things as I watch them, strewn to the winds of emotion by the whim and fancy of my brilliant students.