Credit for Breathing

This afternoon a John Deere mechanic named Brandon came out to the farm to work on Dan's sprayer. He asked if I was still teaching. Dan said I was and asked if he'd had me for a teacher. 

Yes, Brandon said, "She was basically the reason I graduated."

Brandon (class of 2008) had been my student in sophomore English and Interpersonal Communication, but he relayed a specific memory from Creative Writing: One day during class we had a fire drill, and I'd brought my laptop out to the parking lot. While we waited for the all-clear, I'd asked Brandon to take a look at his grade with me.

"It was a B- or a C+," Brandon told Dan. "I asked her how I could possibly have that grade when I'd done nothing all semester. She told me she sometimes gave credit for breathing."

Brandon laughed, then nimbly finished the adjustments to the sprayer.

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Dan told me the story this evening happily. But I felt a familiar mix of teacherly chagrin, exasperation, and disillusion--mixed with a scoop of reality that reminds me to also be a little proud. 

I didn't remember Brandon's story explicitly, but it rang true as something I might have done.  Sometimes my role as a teacher has been to nudge and push and cajole a kid through a semester. Sometimes I've had to hoist the kid onto my shoulders and carry him over the finish line. 

I'm not sure I did right by Brandon, I said. Dan countered, reminding me that Brandon is thriving as a mechanic and remembered my class as a positive force in his life. 
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School has become increasingly automated through online courses and packaged curriculum. This might assure more universal criteria for passing Creative Writing. But it takes away the musician's touch that teaching craves: the crescendo, the fermata, the grace note. 

I'm not sure I taught Brandon anything about creative writing, but I might have taught him to breathe.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison