Almost all I think about these days is class culture, and I know I am not alone. For me, this means a culture that builds trust, embraces confusion, encourages attention and sparks curiosity and joy,  After 30+ years as a high school English teacher,  creating and sustaining this culture is simultaneously more difficult and more crucial than ever. 

In January I was preparing to start The Great Gatsby, a book I love and hadn’t taught for years. If I was going to teach it again, it should have a chance to reveal its beauty, to get read spiritually, not as homework. So before we started, I asked my class if they had ever truly enjoyed a book they read in school.

Awkward silence. (They didn’t want to disappoint me.) My follow-up confirmed what I already knew. I asked how often they had been truly engaged in a lesson, and most looked back with resignation and sadness. School was no place for engagement, joy or any experience of the spirit. It was functional, concerned with the production of work and accumulation of grades. They wished it were different, but these were the unwritten rules. And sadly, they had stopped expecting more. In the age of AI, there are fewer “functional” reasons to actually read a novel for school, so maybe that AI shift can become the reason to read with spirit.

“So are you giving up on ever finding joy in reading?” Now a little rise of indignation. They were not quite willing to resign themselves to a life of solely screen-based entertainment.  

“So if you don’t want to give up on this possibility, how can I create the best context for you to really engage in a reading experience?” Of course one key factor was time–time to settle into attention, to cultivate curiosity and to notice joy. The other was the freedom to look for joy instead of trying to “solve” a novel to please a teacher. So it was settled extra time and more room for exploration and joy.

With our collective agreement on this goal, the students made a commitment to put away devices for a while each night and make space for engagement to happen. Instead prepping for a plot quiz, they shared moments of beauty or confusion in each chapter, and I shared moments of my own. And the plan worked. The discussions had a different flavor when they grew from authentic curiosity. At the end, I asked about the experience. Nearly everyone confirmed that extra time and the mindset shift made a huge difference. They had found moments of true joy. It wasn’t perfect, but we got one step closer to the goal of elevating meaningful experiences above homework production.

As a reader of Andy’s blog,  I am sure we all struggle to balance cultivating engagement and managing time. I am curious about any stories you might share. 

I reflect on experiences like these in my Substack, Rethinking English at https://rethinkingenglish.substack.com

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Pair this blog post with the following:

The Power of Meaningful and Joyful Experiences by Leticia Cariño

The Joy of Eating by Nadia Moya

Discovering Joy in Movement by Andy Milne

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