Author: Kara Waddell

Audre Lorde, a strong woman of color, feminist, activist, member of the LGBTQ community, influential poet, teacher, and much more, has left this world with so much wisdom for everyone to share. The intelligence she offers is not only limited to her civil rights and feminist activism but lessons through her teaching as well. Since my major is Inclusive Childhood Education, I was very intrigued by Lorde’s work with her students at institutions like Hunter College and The Free University of Berlin. Inclusive Education revolves around allowing students with disabilities to join general education classes, so all students have the most appropriate learning methods and receive the best possible education. As an educator, Lorde drew on her own experiences of isolation and vulnerability to create an atmosphere where her students were encouraged to speak out about their interests that they felt connected to. She wanted her classroom to be a space of intimacy to achieve greater human connection and raise consciousness about issues of discrimination and inequality. From Lorde’s approach to teaching, contemporary educators can learn how to make their students feel important, comfortable, and safe in the environment they learn in, so these classes can help increase students’ awareness of themselves, others, and the world. 

Lorde’s experience with loneliness in school had a big influence on how she chose to teach and how she wanted her students to feel. Loneliness “causes people to feel empty, alone, and unwanted. People who are lonely often crave human contact” (Cherry). This resonates with Lorde immensely because she always treasured human touch. In her early school experience, she had a sense of “loneliness” bottled up inside her. She didn’t feel as though she fit in with the children around her or impressed her teachers. One incident that was explained in the book, Zami, was how her teacher kept Lorde inside to work on vocabulary while the other students were released from school. Lorde states, “I came to loathe Wednesday afternoons, sitting by myself in the classroom trying to memorize the singular and plural of a long list of latin nouns” (60). As she sat alone after school, her teacher would come and go as he pleased, and she would sometimes spend hours there forced to try and fix her mistakes. Lorde didn’t have a connection with her teachers or classmates which made her feel like she had no one but herself. Even her mother didn’t understand the importance of relationships at school and told her school is a place for learning, not having friends. This was hard on Lorde because she was the only one who knew exactly how she felt: alone and unwelcomed, which is what she didn’t want her own students to endure. Loneliness also came from cultural differences, as there were less than nine black students in her class (Zami, 24). One of her poems says, “We are/ Enclosed by the walls between us/ by the chemistry of the dead/ spaces we share” (The Classrooms). Lorde’s poem emphasizes her lonely experience in her classrooms which she described as “dead spaces.” With this separation, she felt detached from the people around her, but it made her realize she didn’t want her future classroom to be represented with this same feeling of rejection.

Lorde took the loneliness she felt from her school and wanted to guarantee none of her future students would feel this isolation. To achieve this, she began to teach college students the importance of Black Women’s Poetry, Afro-American Literature, and much more during the 1980s when oppression was still very infamous. She strived to help her students better understand their own individual lives and connect their experiences to things that were going on worldwide. This was done by incorporating lessons about White and Black American racism and sexism. Her syllabus includes, “Defining Racism,” “Mechanics of Oppression,” and readings about “White Majority,” and “Notes of a Native Son” (18-20). These topics may be intense, but Lorde wanted her students to be aware of racism and possibly make a difference in society. Lorde made her classroom a safe place to express sensitivity and vulnerability so the effect of the lessons would be more beneficial.

Lorde created a classroom where students could be vulnerable so they could embrace fragility with personal or societal matters. Vulnerability is “the state of being open to injury, or appearing as if you are. It might be emotional, […]or it can be literal” (Vocabulary).  Lorde wanted her students to allow unspoken emotions to be heard through their voices. She incorporated personal assignments into her lessons that were related to real-world issues. Lorde asked her students to answer, “In your daily living give 3 examples of actual ways in which you yourself can function to positively counteract racism. Be specific” (Lorde Archive, Spelman College, Box 82). For Lorde, it was necessary for her students to dive into the vulnerable state when discussing harder topics such as Racism and American Women. Vulnerability allows her students to open up, move into their deep thoughts, and share what they have experienced and felt. In “I Teach Myself in Outline,” Atkin and Brown write, “Lorde’s classroom was a place of open wounds, where vulnerability was visible and the learning process entailed acts of mutual care as well as expressions of tension” (7). This quote describes how emotion was important in Lorde’s life and her teaching style. Lorde strives to be the best listener, mentor, friend, and educator she can be to her students. One of Lorde’s key points is to speak out and break the silence: break the walls separating our emotions from our words. Breaking the silence will lead to the break of this loneliness inside her and others. Lorde uses her sense of emotion and motivation for change through her teaching methods and hopes her students will begin to share the uncomfortable with her, each other, and eventually the world. 

Intimacy is a key component in Lorde’s work as a teacher. Intimacy is “the state of being intimate. A close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group” (Dictionary). In “Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human,” Lorde describes this intimacy as a kind of relationship that connects us with our real feelings. This intimacy is metaphorical, but also not restricted from being physical. Lorde touched her students’ hearts by providing the comfort and breathing room they needed to express themselves. One of her students said,  “She made you feel, when you were talking to her, that there was no place she’d rather be” (4). Her students appreciated her attentiveness and the insight she brought to the class. This is also what we as students desire in our own teachers. We need teachers who, like Lorde, present trust and dependability. Educators can achieve this by trying to try to get to know their students on a more personal and intimate level, knowing when they are struggling with something or having the perfect day. Lorde allowed and encouraged her students to express their thoughts and opinions so they could understand themselves and be understood by others. 

While Lorde had felt lonely and isolated as a student, she sought to create an intimate and vulnerable classroom that brought students together to share related and relative emotions. It was important to Lorde to take care of her students both educationally and passionately because this was not evident in her own experiences in school. She didn’t want her students’ opinions to be ignored, especially in her lessons about injustice. As Lorde said, relating to her school experience, “Caring for was not always caring about” (Zami, 27). She does much more than “care for” her students, she treats them like people with real emotions who should trust the classroom environment enough to share them. Understanding her students’ experiences and feelings, as well as making them aware of problems in society was a goal she had for her classroom, and also a goal for us as educators to follow. Lorde wanted to create a connection between her and her students to make them feel more comfortable when expressing ideas. Teaching is a lifetime duty. We teach ourselves and others new things from everything we do. Lorde’s style of teaching has a big influence on myself, as well as current teachers, and encourages us to be open to a connected, vulnerable, and intimate classroom so we can incorporate these methods in our own classrooms.

Works Cited

AZ Quotes. “Audre Lorde Quote.” AZ Quotes, 2004, www.azquotes.com/quote/1169190. Accessed 8 May 2020.

Cherry, Kendra. “The Health Consequences of Loneliness.” Very Well Mind, 23 Mar. 2020, www.verywellmind.com/loneliness-causes-effects-and-treatments-2795749. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

“Intimacy.” Dictionary.com, 2020, www.dictionary.com/browse/intimacy. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press.

Lorde, Audre. “The Classrooms.” “I Teach Myself in Outline,” Notes, Journals, Syllabi, & an Excerpt from Deotha. 2017.

Lorde, Audre. Lorde Archive, Spelman College, Box 82

Lorde, Audre. Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human. 2009. Oxford University Press

Lorde, Audre. “I Teach Myself in Outline,” Notes, Journals, Syllabi, & an Excerpt from Deotha. Edited by Iemanja Brown and Miriam Atkin, CUNY Poetics Documents Initiative, 2017.

“Vulnerability.” Vocabulary.com, www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/vulnerability. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Thank you all for your blog post comments! Many of the comments I received touched on the idea of how intimacy has more than a sexual or physical meaning and that Lorde turned it into an emotional and passionate connection. Lorde wanted to incorporate being touched emotionally by the ideas and conversations brought up in class, but she is not completely disregarding the physical touch either. Professor Savonick showed during our virtual class a photo of Lorde surrounded by her students. They were close together showing the welcoming, accepting, and safe space Lorde brings into her classroom. Her students looked happy to be where they were in that moment. To them, Lorde was probably more than just their teacher. She’s their mentor, friend, and escape room to let out the feelings that may not be able to be expressed elsewhere. I think the main reason she was so successful in her classroom and life was because she was so honest and real with everyone she encountered. In her “Poet as Teacher” essay, she describes her full self, leaving nothing out. She doesn’t want to create an “injustice” to her students (183). This carries over into her course material as she relates her assignments and class discussions about real life situations and how they can connect with each other and also her students’ lives. 

I also wanted to touch on the idea of this uncomfortableness she also wants students in the class to feel. Not everything that is talked about is something people like to share or comment on. In a room full of different cultures, genders, and sexuality, there will be tension. But this is what she encourages. The unspoken words that need a place to roam free without judgement. She wants to make her classroom this place, but also continue to be strong and dedicated to the topic they are discussing. In her poem, “Blackstudies,” she writes, “I am afraid of speaking/ the truth.” This stood out to me because she was once afraid of saying what was on her mind and now she encourages her students to do what she couldn’t. This is very powerful because she knows people won’t always share what needs to be said. She is taking initiative to not only help her students learn and grow, but so they can take what they learn and incorporate these ideas in their lives and be able to and want to take action.

In the readings of Lorde as a teacher, she has really taken all aspects into account to be the best listener, mentour, friend, and educator she can be to her students. Becoming a teacher was much more to Lorde than sitting down with her kids and using the written curriculum. She believed in human connection and touch. She focuses on the emotional aspect of life and helps us in understanding ourselves as better individuals and as a whole. In her article, “Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human,” Lorde describes the different activities she would do with her students depending on the mood of the day. She says, “The exercise I choose for a rainy day with the same group is different from that which I’d have chosen had the day been bright, or the day after a police slaughter of a Black child” (182). This quote explains how Lorde really embraces human connection and understands the necessary things that need to be done on any specific day to make her students feel better and more connected with the outside world as long as with each other. She also helps them create and produce their own poetry by allowing them to go on the inside and teach them about “feeling herself or himself” (183). This relates back to Zami and how Lorde always believed in the inner and outer touch and that it helped her really know how to feel and express those feelings with others. This can help the children understand themselves more and choose which feelings they wish to share make others understand as well.

Lorde also uses her own personal journals and notes to assist her in her ways of teaching. This is explained in “I Teach Myself in Outline, Notes, Journals, Syllabi & an Excerpt from Deotha.” She is always striving to help her students relate to their own everyday lives and wants to incorporate their experiences as well. One of her students from Hunter College said this about Lorde, “She made you feel, when you were talking to her, that there was no place she’d rather be” (4). Her students appreciate her attentiveness and the insight she brought to the class. She allowed and encouraged them to share their thoughts and opinions and to express their own feelings. Teaching is a lifetime duty, we teach ourselves and others new things from everything we do. It says, “Lorde’s classroom was a place of open wounds, where vulnerability was visible and the learning process entailed acts of mutual care as well as expressions of tension” (7). This quote describes how emotion plays a big role in Lorde’s life and her ways of teaching. Intimacy and feeling fill her classroom atmosphere, which creates this connectedness for her and her students.   

In the poem, “The Classroom,” using her own experience, Lorde talks about the classroom environment that she had to live in when she was a child. She reminds us about the bad memories she had, but also relating back to how she felt. She had a sense of “loneliness” bottled up inside her. She didn’t feel as though she fit in with the children around her or impressed her teachers. This loneliness also came from the distance between each other and different cultures. It says, “We are/ Enclosed by the walls between us/ by the chemistry of the dead/ spaces we share” Lorde has always believed in the art of touch and how it connects us with our real feelings and thoughts. She incorporates this sense of intimacy in her own classrooms to allow her students to express their true self and understand more about one another through shared and differed experiences. She uses the adjectives “naive and plastic/ safe and unspeakable” These words define how people act immature, fake, and sheltered, too afraid to be the first one to cross the start line and be the difference. Lorde uses her sense of emotion and motivation for change through her teaching methods and hopes her students will feel comfortable sharing the uncomfortable with her, each other, and eventually the world.  

Discussion Questions:

1. What effects of Lorde’s own personal experience in school influenced her decision to become a teacher and the way she teaches?
2. Why do you think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch even in her teaching? Why does she revolve life around intimacy and emotion?

Hi! This is Kara, I just turned 20 and am in my second year here at Cortland as an Inclusive Childhood Education Major with my concentration as English. I am on the Cortland soccer team and in Education Club. I grew up in Geneseo, NY and have a dog named Pepsi and a cat named Cola. Fun fact: I don’t even like soda, but the names fit them perfectly I swear. I am an only child, so I consider my animals my siblings. I am one who loves all type of music and can never pick my one favorite movie or TV show. But, my all time favorite book is “Message in a Bottle,” by Nicholas Sparks. I am such a romantic and will cry every time I read it. Can’t wait for this class and super excited for this semester with you all!