I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.
Interpretation
As a teacher, one should prioritize the well-being of students and avoid causing them harm in their learning process.
In this quote, Chang-Rae Lee emphasizes the responsibility of teachers in nurturing students' growth without inflicting harm. Similar to the medical profession's commitment to 'do no harm,' educators should create a supportive and safe environment that fosters learning, creativity, and self-expression, thus highlighting the moral imperative to protect their students emotionally and intellectually.
In practice
During a parent-teacher conference, to explain my approach to fostering positive learning environments.
And it occurred to me that in this new millennial life of instant and ubiquitous connection, you don't in fact communicate so much as leave messages for one another, these odd improvisational performances, often sorry bits and samplings of ourselves that can't help but seem out of context. And then when you do finally reach someone, everyone's so out of practice or too hopeful or else embittered that you wonder if it would be better not to attempt contact at all.
We read and remember certain writers because they offer distinctive voices and perspectives, because they've given themselves over completely and passionately to their obsessions while vigorously ignoring everything else.
I don't feel uncomfortable in America, but every once in a while, I'm reminded that people don't see me the way I see me. It doesn't change my life, but it gives me a consciousness about it.
We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears.
For if there is ever a moment when we are most vulnerable, it’s when we’re closest to the idea of the attained desire, and thus farthest from ourselves, which is when we’ll tread through any flame.
Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read.
My undergraduates, at first, get all starry-eyed about the idea of finding their passion, but over time, they get far more excited about developing their passion and seeing it through. They come to understand that that's how they and their futures will be shaped and how they will ultimately make their contributions.
When I was writing for children, I was writing genre fiction. It was like making a good chair. However beautiful it looked, it needed four legs of the same length, it had to be the right height and it had to be comfortable.
Let us take our children seriously! Everything else follows from this... only the best is good enough for a child.
I don't know. I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as a handing down of answers.
What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity.
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