wonderfully dangerous

I introduced my students to an app called "The Most Dangerous Writing App" this week. Now, I don't know why it's called that, but I used it for five minutes and produced the following piece of writing:


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I'm working this week with my students on some writing. Well, I suppose I am always working with my students on writing. This week, however, was different because I introduced them to an application on the internet that was first shared with me by my cousin, Preston Noon. Preston is someone who inspires me whenever we connect. He is a really fascinating thinker and I love connecting with him on a wide variety of topics.

What Preston shared with me was an application called "The Most Dangerous Writing App." The app erases everything you've written if you stop writing for five seconds.

Like, the words you've written are completely gone. Forever.

So I introduced my eighth graders to this idea. I invited them to answer one of three writing prompts, and the only goal was to not stop writing. The three prompts were creative and relatively open-ended. They included

1) you are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

2) what can happen in a second?

3) A houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live.

Their assignment was just to keep writing, to not stop writing...to churn out ideas and a direction for their words and their thinking.

For so many students this caused immediate anxiety, but it also helped them realize what a beneficial tool this could be.

Fear can be a motivator, but so too can the challenge of competition. If a student is able to stay on task for five quick minutes, what can't they do?

If they KNOW their work will be erased, they won't be interrupted by things like the internet, text messages, a desire to run to the fridge and grab a snack...no, instead they will just write like their hair is on fire.

The sound right now as I write this is electric. Deep exhales and inhales married to the clickity-clack of typing on their laptops.

Nobody is stopping, I'm not sure anyone is even breathing. But we are all writing...and as I write this on my own computer, I'm a little scared but I'm also a little excited and empowered. What if I used this every day and just got in the practice of letting my words flow, my ideas snap onto the page with an immediate urgency...

What if all my ideas made their way to the page.
What if I learned to sustain a task and work with no interruptions.

What if this was the most dangerous writing app, not because it will destroy us but because we will all turn into Alexander Hamiltons .

"Why do you write like you're running out of time..."

And the chorus chimes, "That man is...NONSTOP."

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This experience of writing beside my students in this manner was inspiring. It was compelling. It was addictive. I always write when my students write, but this felt different. It felt like I was writing like a man on fire (just like I'd hoped my students would be). So, perhaps that's why it's called "the most dangerous," because danger can also mean wild, it can also mean untamed.

When we face danger we are vulnerable. 

When we take risks, we are in danger.

Ands when we write, we invite vulnerability.

When we write we take risks.

And when an app invites you to take risks without thinking, our inhibitions shut off and we begin to write things and feel things we didn't know we were feeling.

And that can be wonderfully dangerous to shifting the core of the status quo.

Expectations

Every fall I have the opportunity to fall in love with school again.

I suppose it's become sort of an expectation of mine.

I have always loved school, but I have also always loved the feeling of falling in love with something. It's that newness--that feeling of everything being a "first time" and a shocking delight. When we fall in love we float, we daydream, we imagine what might become.

With a school year I still feel that way. The rebirth of possibility and ideas and relationships. Even the air seems to buzz with a coolly snapping crispness.

During these first weeks of school I like to articulate the expectations I have of my students. None of them have to do with performance, but all of them have to do with the relationship I'm developing with them. Things like honesty and communication and avoiding chronic tardiness are topics we discuss often.

But I also love that my students arrive with expectations of me. I love that they come in thinking they know what English class will feel like or how they will receive feedback.

And then I love surprising them. And I love being surprised by them.

Yesterday I slipped a student a handwritten note acknowledging their contributions to discussion and sharing how excited I was to teach them this year.

Later, the student returned.

"Mr. McDonough, I didn't expect that. Thank you so much for writing those words. It really means a lot. I am excited for the year."

I smiled, took the student's extended hand and replied,

"I didn't expect you to come back to thank me. Thank you."

May this be a year of exceeding the expectations--however lofty--others have for us, and of communicating deeply and meaningfully in ways that make people float, daydream, and imagine what might become.

Bandwidth

I don't know if I am going to continue this blog.

Writing those words feels good.
It feels cathartic. Real.

Sometimes just acknowledging my own indecision can help me to find the ground beneath my feet. From there I can better identify where I am...where I'm going to ultimately land.

And right now, I don't know where that is.

The new school year is stretched before me and I am excited--probably as excited as I've ever been. And you should know that I have always been excited about school starting. Even when I was a little kid; yet this year feels particularly electric.

I've moved to a new classroom.
I have big ideas...ideas that have grown and evolved over the summer.
I have excited students and I've met many of their parents who are excited for them.
I'm teaching a new course.
I am eager to be led by inspiring new leaders.
I am tutoring some really wonderful students.

In so many ways I am doing so much--so much that I love.

And, still, I am worried. I am worried about my bandwidth and about whether or not I can handle it all.

So I might not. I might elect to give something up, and it might be this blog.

But for today it has felt good to write this. I write as my students write. They are writing about what their life will look like twenty years from now if they've had a fulfilling life.

My life, 20 years removed from eighth grade, is one of inspiration. I feel grounded. I am here. I know where I am, even if I don't know where I will ultimately land. For today, that is fulfilling. For today--the second day of school--that is enough.