WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.850 --> 00:00:03.330 Hi, everyone, my name is Marcella Pixley, 2 00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:06.260 and I am the author of Trowbridge Road. 3 00:00:06.260 --> 00:00:07.750 And what I wanted to do today 4 00:00:07.750 --> 00:00:10.620 is I wanted to share with you a letter 5 00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:13.240 that I wrote for my students 6 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:14.790 at the beginning of the school year, 7 00:00:14.790 --> 00:00:19.790 that I feel like introduces myself as a teacher to them, 8 00:00:19.990 --> 00:00:22.160 and makes some wishes 9 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:23.980 about what our year together should be. 10 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:27.530 And so I thought that I would share the letter with you. 11 00:00:27.530 --> 00:00:28.833 And so here it is. 12 00:00:33.667 --> 00:00:36.720 "It is the weekend before school starts, 13 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:39.380 I guess you can say it's still technically the summer, 14 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:42.570 but I'm beginning to get that fluttery anxious feeling 15 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:45.000 that means school is about to begin. 16 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.760 I can feel a shift in the air already, 17 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:51.080 a kind of spiciness that reminds me of apple picking, 18 00:00:51.080 --> 00:00:52.970 and autumn leaves, and cinnamon, 19 00:00:52.970 --> 00:00:54.660 and the special excitement 20 00:00:54.660 --> 00:00:58.710 that comes only at the beginning of each school year. 21 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:00.880 The strangest part of teaching for me 22 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:03.950 is the last day of school, and the first. 23 00:01:03.950 --> 00:01:06.230 On move up day, you all pile into my room, 24 00:01:06.230 --> 00:01:07.780 still seventh graders, 25 00:01:07.780 --> 00:01:11.160 ready to burst out the door, and dive into summer. 26 00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:12.780 On the first day of school, 27 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:15.170 you come in as new eighth graders, 28 00:01:15.170 --> 00:01:18.480 you come into my classroom still buzzing from the summer, 29 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:21.130 and look around at the posters and wooden animals, 30 00:01:21.130 --> 00:01:23.420 trying to imagine yourself in here, 31 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:26.300 trying to figure out if you are going to like it. 32 00:01:26.300 --> 00:01:29.310 I look out at you without knowing you yet. 33 00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:31.410 And I close my eyes. 34 00:01:31.410 --> 00:01:35.040 Deep down, I make a wish, a little girl wish really, 35 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:37.190 from the days when wishes had power, 36 00:01:37.190 --> 00:01:39.653 that it will be a magical year for us. 37 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:42.923 What can I tell you about myself? 38 00:01:43.800 --> 00:01:45.870 I was a strange kid. 39 00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:47.580 I played cello. 40 00:01:47.580 --> 00:01:49.800 I had a ferret named Jessica. 41 00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:53.510 I wore my hair in three ponytails, one on the top, 42 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:57.270 like a unicorn's horn, and one on either side. 43 00:01:57.270 --> 00:02:00.480 In the 80s, purple eyeshadow was in style, 44 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.520 and so were black spandex leggings. 45 00:02:03.520 --> 00:02:05.040 I had a curly perm, 46 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:07.290 and I used to wear black silk shirts, 47 00:02:07.290 --> 00:02:09.850 and green suede elf boots. 48 00:02:09.850 --> 00:02:13.060 I read science fiction and fantasy obsessively, 49 00:02:13.060 --> 00:02:16.430 and I believed deeply in magic. 50 00:02:16.430 --> 00:02:17.900 My best friend, Erica, and I 51 00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:19.830 used to play this make-believe game, 52 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:21.870 where we had psychic powers. 53 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:23.730 We would stare into candle flames 54 00:02:23.730 --> 00:02:26.870 trying to make the fire flicker with our minds. 55 00:02:26.870 --> 00:02:28.650 Sometimes we would practice 56 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:31.743 with bubbles, or milkweed, or clouds. 57 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:34.980 Things changed in sixth grade. 58 00:02:34.980 --> 00:02:38.210 It seemed like people had transformed overnight, 59 00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:40.490 but I had stayed the same. 60 00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:42.350 At our middle school dance, 61 00:02:42.350 --> 00:02:45.160 while the other kids slow danced to Stairway to Heaven, 62 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:47.950 I pretended to be a wolf. 63 00:02:47.950 --> 00:02:50.500 I piled a bunch of folding chairs together, 64 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:53.883 and crawled underneath, howling faintly. 65 00:02:55.100 --> 00:02:57.610 I always wanted to be a writer. 66 00:02:57.610 --> 00:03:01.330 I used to travel from class to class with a black notebook, 67 00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:03.670 where I kept all my strange ideas. 68 00:03:03.670 --> 00:03:05.350 Sometimes I would write down 69 00:03:05.350 --> 00:03:07.660 what the people around me were saying. 70 00:03:07.660 --> 00:03:09.890 Sometimes I would make up fantasy worlds, 71 00:03:09.890 --> 00:03:11.440 where I was always the heroine, 72 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:14.230 and draw maps of the kingdoms I imagined. 73 00:03:14.230 --> 00:03:17.270 I scribbled in my notebooks during all my classes, 74 00:03:17.270 --> 00:03:18.790 and rarely paid attention 75 00:03:18.790 --> 00:03:21.830 to anything the teachers were saying. 76 00:03:21.830 --> 00:03:26.220 One time when Mr. Hancock left the room to have a smoke, 77 00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:28.660 teachers smoked in the faculty room back then, 78 00:03:28.660 --> 00:03:31.810 their tweed jackets always smelled like cigarettes 79 00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:33.960 and strong coffee. 80 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:38.050 One girl who hated my guts, came up to my desk, 81 00:03:38.050 --> 00:03:40.780 and started tearing pages out of my notebook, 82 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:42.720 just ripping and ripping. 83 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:44.570 When I asked her to stop, 84 00:03:44.570 --> 00:03:46.700 she grabbed my black silk shirt, 85 00:03:46.700 --> 00:03:48.870 and pushed me into the wall. 86 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:52.800 Then I smashed her in the head with a nearby grammar book, 87 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.530 an action that felt really good, 88 00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:59.363 but did not help me reclaim any of my lost pages. 89 00:04:00.420 --> 00:04:01.923 What else can I tell you? 90 00:04:03.160 --> 00:04:04.470 I'm not the kind of teacher 91 00:04:04.470 --> 00:04:07.250 who enjoys silence in the classroom. 92 00:04:07.250 --> 00:04:10.100 I love it when students call on each other, 93 00:04:10.100 --> 00:04:11.730 and I can move out of the circle 94 00:04:11.730 --> 00:04:15.260 to listen and admire your minds at work. 95 00:04:15.260 --> 00:04:17.270 When the conversation is really clicking, 96 00:04:17.270 --> 00:04:19.900 it will hum in this room, 97 00:04:19.900 --> 00:04:21.360 I love the kind of discussion 98 00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:24.080 that gets people rising out of their seats, 99 00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:28.480 slapping their desks with open palms, frothing at the mouth. 100 00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:30.240 I fell in love with passionate talk 101 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:31.350 when I was a little girl, 102 00:04:31.350 --> 00:04:34.230 sitting at my father's Passover Seders. 103 00:04:34.230 --> 00:04:36.320 Grandpa Sidney would be there, 104 00:04:36.320 --> 00:04:40.450 and great aunt Ida, and grandma Anne's second husband, Sam, 105 00:04:40.450 --> 00:04:42.300 and all these older people 106 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:45.390 would talk about politics and religion, 107 00:04:45.390 --> 00:04:47.750 and how people should live their lives. 108 00:04:47.750 --> 00:04:49.860 They would speak with their mouths full 109 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:52.920 of my mother's brisket or matzah ball soup. 110 00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:55.570 And the kids would sit and listen. 111 00:04:55.570 --> 00:04:58.130 Sometimes I would fall asleep at the table, 112 00:04:58.130 --> 00:05:01.230 listening to them argue, listening to them debate, 113 00:05:01.230 --> 00:05:05.740 wishing that one day I would be old enough to join in. 114 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.930 Maybe that's why I became a teacher. 115 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:11.150 I want to create a classroom 116 00:05:11.150 --> 00:05:13.790 where everyone feels like they are welcome to speak, 117 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:15.790 no matter who they are. 118 00:05:15.790 --> 00:05:19.350 I invite you to argue with me this year. 119 00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:24.300 I invite you to disagree, I can't wait to hear your ideas. 120 00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:28.680 I promise I will push you as hard as I can this year. 121 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:31.340 I promise that our work together won't be easy. 122 00:05:31.340 --> 00:05:34.890 Nothing important should ever be easy. 123 00:05:34.890 --> 00:05:36.980 I promise to ask you hard questions 124 00:05:36.980 --> 00:05:39.100 that will make your minds stretch. 125 00:05:39.100 --> 00:05:40.760 Did you know that thinking deeply 126 00:05:40.760 --> 00:05:43.970 really does change the structure of your brain? 127 00:05:43.970 --> 00:05:47.370 All I ask is that you do your best in here. 128 00:05:47.370 --> 00:05:49.120 I ask that you come to class 129 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:51.770 ready to share your own ideas and opinions. 130 00:05:51.770 --> 00:05:56.130 I ask you to find your voice, and choose to use it. 131 00:05:56.130 --> 00:05:58.240 I can't wait to get to know you, 132 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:00.790 and hear your ideas at our table. 133 00:06:00.790 --> 00:06:03.820 Hurry up and get here so we can begin, 134 00:06:03.820 --> 00:06:05.947 sincerely Mrs. Pixley." 135 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:11.850 So thank you for hearing the letter 136 00:06:11.850 --> 00:06:13.850 that I start off my school year with. 137 00:06:13.850 --> 00:06:17.740 And then I invite my students to write a letter to me. 138 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:19.820 And their very first assignment 139 00:06:19.820 --> 00:06:22.500 is the very difficult assignment 140 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:25.580 of trying to explain in their own voices 141 00:06:25.580 --> 00:06:28.900 who they are to a teacher that does not yet know them. 142 00:06:28.900 --> 00:06:29.910 But this assignment, 143 00:06:29.910 --> 00:06:32.640 and starting this way with letter writing, 144 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:34.850 I find is a really nice way 145 00:06:34.850 --> 00:06:38.290 of making that first connection be a deep one. 146 00:06:38.290 --> 00:06:40.090 So thank you so much, 147 00:06:40.090 --> 00:06:43.963 and enjoy your school years, and your writing.