Visiting classrooms

The first time I vis­it­ed a classroom—in my role as a writer—was in 1970. I had just pub­lished my first book, Things That Some­times Hap­pen, and I was invit­ed to Roo­sevelt, New Jer­sey. The invi­ta­tion came from my brother-in-law’s aunt. I remem­ber it well.

This morn­ing, via Zoom, I vis­it­ed a class in Rum­ford, Rhode Island, via Zoom. Last class of the strangest sea­son. I shall remem­ber it well, too.

In oth­er words, I’ve been vis­it­ing class­rooms for fifty-one years. How many class­es have I engaged with? I’m guess­ing a few thousand. 

As I pub­lished more books there were more class­room vis­its. In those days they came to me through my pub­lish­ers. Now they come almost exclu­sive­ly via my inde­pen­dent pub­li­cist. In the old days I would vis­it as many as five class­rooms a day. Once, I did, sev­en. Nev­er again. 

It may be hard to believe but back then these kinds of school vis­its were some­what new. There was no one to tell me how to do it. In many cas­es, there was no one to tell schools how to orga­nize them. 

At one point I wrote an arti­cle with my dear writer friend, Bet­ty Miles (The Trou­ble with Thir­teen) about how—from the writer’s point of view one could do school vis­its. I no longer know where or when it was published. 

At some point, I began to show slides of my fam­i­ly, my home, and most of all my writ­ing process. Each year I would takes pic­tures and mount them on a carousel and hope the school had a decent projector. 

Once, when vis­it­ing the pres­ti­gious school run by the Nation­al Cathe­dral in Wash­ing­ton DC, where many con­gres­sion­al and gov­ern­ment chil­dren went, I was shown the elab­o­rate resources of the school. Then, dur­ing my talk—showing slides—the pro­jec­tor bulb burned out. There was a mighty strug­gle to find a new one, and since no one knew how to replace the bulb I did so, all the while con­tin­u­ing with my talk. 

“We would like to start off the day,” said my teacher host at a school in Okla­homa, “with you say­ing a few words to some stu­dents.” With that, she led me onto a stage of a gigan­tic audi­to­ri­um. Two thou­sand kids were there. 

Only once did I walk out of a school. It was in a wealthy sub­urb of Boston. The only ques­tion they would ask was “How much mon­ey did I make from … “ a par­tic­u­lar book. “Ask that one more time and I’m leav­ing,” I said. It was asked again. I left. 

I would attempt to “read,” a class mood when I walked in. I have a prac­ticed open­ing when being greet­ed by a slouch­ing high school class, reek­ing with indif­fer­ence. I start by ask­ing, “Let’s talk about why you think this is going to be bor­ing,” and I point to the boy who is sit­ting there in the front row, legs extend­ed, mak­ing a show of keep­ing his eyes open. “Me?” he says, star­tled. “Yes, you. Tell me why you think this will be stu­pid?” A good dis­cus­sion fol­lows about being lec­tured to about writing—and spelling. We move on to a good time. 

In a school in east­ern Col­orado, a boy stood up, and said, “I hate read­ing. Read­ing is a waste of time. What you are say­ing is stupid.” 

Among the many reward­ing vis­its were those to class­es of dyslex­ic and dys­graph­ic kids. I loved show­ing them my high school papers which were drenched with the red crit­i­cal marks my teach­ers’ made. As I shared this visu­al back­ground, the kids, who began class with low­ered eyes, clear­ly await­ing anoth­er vapid pep-talk about their strug­gles, would slow­ly lift their eyes, and smile, and begin to ask questions. 

Once a boy raised his hand and asked, “Were you ever divorced?” 

“Yes,” I replied. 

“Are you still friends with your for­mer wife?” 

“Yes,” I replied again. 

“I’m glad,” he said. 

After the class, a teacher came up to me and apol­o­gized for the question. 

“No, no. I’m glad he asked that,” I said. “I’m guess­ing his par­ents just got divorced.” 

“How did you know that?” said the teacher. 

And many a time, after talk­ing to a large group, one stu­dent would linger in the room. She, or he, had not asked a ques­tion. But now, alone with me, the kid would say, “I real­ly liked lis­ten­ing to you. I’m going to have to read your books. Thanks for com­ing.” The stu­dent walks away, and a host teacher, full of anx­i­ety would rush up. “What did he say to you?” “Just that he liked what I said.” “Wow! That kid nev­er says anything.” 

After a two-hour dri­ve across the planes of North Dako­ta, I was in a school when I asked for ques­tions. The first ques­tion was, “Why are you here? No one ever vis­its our school.” 

Today’s vis­it was con­duct­ed with Zoom. Not the best way. It is like talk­ing to a col­lec­tion of postage stamps. But it worked. We all had fun. 

A cou­ple of weeks ago I vis­it­ed a class­room, a vir­tu­al vis­it. It was the 10th year I vis­it­ed that teacher’s class­room. It will be the last. She’s retiring.

I’m not. 

It’s hard for me to say what the kids get out of the vis­it. I come, I vis­it, I leave. Some­times I get reports from the school. In my begin­ning days, I left a ques­tion­naire with my host ask­ing for an eval­u­a­tion, and sug­ges­tions for improvement.

But what do I get out of such vis­its? To be sure my books are read and sold. But I have nev­er treat­ed these occa­sions as a mar­ket­ing ven­ture. I have nev­er tried to teach. I want to share with young peo­ple my expe­ri­ence as a writer. To share my love of read­ing. Most impor­tant for me is that I get to meet my read­ers. I hope they become my friends. They tell me what they like and don’t like, and I have always learned a great deal from that. And maybe, because of that, now and again, as I am talk­ing to a par­tic­u­lar stu­dent, I real­ize I’m talk­ing to the char­ac­ter I’m writ­ing about. 

Thanks for being there. I may nev­er see you again, but maybe we’ll meet again in my stories.